Amazon Rapids offers children’s stories in text message style
Amazon is going after young readers with a new mobile app that tells stories in the format they love best: text messages.
Amazon Rapids, released Wednesday, is a subscription service with a library of original, short stories that read like text message exchanges between characters. Each story’s narrative unfolds through messages that appear on screen with a tap or scroll, emulating how most young people communicate on their phones.
The app, which costs $2.99 a month, is aimed at children ages 7 to 12. It’s not included in the Amazon Prime subscription bundle, but promises to entertain with a regularly updated catalog of age-appropriate stories. Stories come with built-in audio glossaries and include a “read to me” mode, so kids can follow along while the story is read aloud.
Beyond being an educational tool, Rapids represents yet another subscription-based way to introduce consumers, particularly younger ones, to the Amazon family. The smartphone and tablet app seems especially designed to get children hooked on Amazon, or at least much more familiar with the brand.
“Amazon is trying to accomplish a number of different things. One is to instill loyalty among younger consumers who have a lot of influence over parents’ shopping decisions,” said Paul Verna, a senior analyst with digital analytics firm EMarketer. “Amazon is also trying to go up against YouTube.”
The Alphabet-owned digital video service is the most-loved brand among kids ages 6 to 12, according to the market research firm’s Smarty Pants 2016 “Brand Love” study. YouTube beat out more traditional kid-friendly brands such as Oreo, Disney and Toys ’R’ Us, and also out-ranked its online TV counterpart, Netflix, which placed 11th among youngsters. Amazon, on the other hand, didn’t crack the top 25, even though the company offers its own lineup of kid-friendly shows and movies.
“I think [Rapids] was born of Amazon executives seeing that their kids were always on messaging platforms, so they wanted to combine that activity with trying to foster a deeper love for learning,” he said.
If there’s a glitch in the strategy, it’s that Amazon seems to be ignoring that parents, who will of course be footing the $2.99-per-month bill, may be in search of more ways to pry their child’s attention away from the smartphone.
“A lot of parents, when they think about reading and learning, they think about moving away from the device, rather than toward it,” Verna said.
Jennifer Van Grove writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune
jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com
