The geek’s way of learning the ABCs
First Words for Geeks is an interactive iOS e-book.KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 — “A” may stand for apple, but where First Words for Geeks is concerned, it’s not a fruit, but the tech company it’s referring to.
Launched on April 18, First Words for Geeks is an interactive iOS e-book that was created by Malaysian app developers Terato Tech using their custom-built AIYO publishing engine that powers the Going Places iPad magazine.
The book was an idea of Terato Tech co-founder Reza Hazri, who thought that the available first words books on the market “doesn’t reflect the current situation.”
Word charts featuring B for ball, F for fish or Z for zebra have been used by children across generations, and isn’t it about time that, in this iPad day-and-age, kids broaden their scope and learn about BlackBerry, Facebook, and Zynga instead?
As the title suggests, this is one book that’s filled with “geeky” vocabulary that the staffers in Terato thought was fun and relevant, and included names of popular Internet companies like Rackspace, Quora, and of course, Twitter.
“We compiled the trending geeky words in 2011 and put them all in one app,” says Henzman Kumpul from Terato’s Publishing and Social Media division. “We believe it’s fun way to expose kids early to tech. But it’s not only for kids, as the app is very informative and can be shared with everyone else.”
Doodling fascination
The app, which costs US$1.99 (RM6.08), is about 67 megabytes big, so it doesn’t take long to download with a decent connection. Once opened, you’ll come across hand-drawn illustrations by Mimi Mashud, a local illustrator who is behind Stoodles (which stands for “status-doodles”), an art project that involves her creating doodles based on people’s Status updates on Facebook.
“We thought she was the right artist for the project. Her art is perfect for this kind of geeky project,” says Henzman.
Besides the cute animations, each alphabet page would have a short description of the subject, and directly under that is a button that opens an in-app browser that directs you to the related Wikipedia entry.
Each page also features a comment button that allows people to share their thoughts about the page on the Disqus comment platform, the option to buy a printed book (US$17.51, using HP MagCloud publishing service), and the option to buy T-shirts of each alphabet (priced from US$19.99 to US$29.99, using CafePress’s T-shirt printing service). There are also buttons that allow you to e-mail friends about the App, as well as spread the word on Facebook and Twitter.
First Words for Geeks is only the start for the company’s efforts to promote their AIYO platform, which would be publicly available in early May. “We are planning a series of six books this year under First Words App this year, and First Words for Geeks will be an annual publication,” says Henzman.
First Words for Geeks is available on the Apple App Store now.
