Fourth Story Media

Lisa Holton discussed Fourth Story Media’s current thinking, and recent developments in The Amanda Project at Digital Book World January 26th on the panel “Synergizing the Book and Web: Books Plus in the 21st Century.” The panel – moderated by Market Partners International’s Lorraine Shanley, with Will Schwalbe (our office mate and CEO of Cookstr), and Hillel Cooperman (founder of Jackson Fish Market) among others – covered everything from the challenges of being a start-up to exploring new digital business models.

Some highlights:

• The twitterverse especially loved Lisa’s mention of The Amanda Project’s recent collaboration with Modcloth.
• ForeWord highlighted The Amanda Project as an “innovative application of reader engagement in authoring,” alongside other projects like the ever-popular book social networking site GoodReads, and HarperCollins’ new site for aspiring writers Inkpop.
• And (our favorite) Chapman/Chapman said in his DBW summary: “Fourth Story Media are doing very, very cool shit with transmedia storytelling.”

With early June bringing both Book Expo America (BEA) and Internet Week to the fine city of New York, Fourth Story Media was recently invited to speak on a few panels.

As part of School Library Journal’s Day of Dialog during BEA, Lisa Holton, FSM’s CEO & Founder, sat on the panel The Multiplatform Novel: From Print to Web to Social Networks. Moderated by librarian extraordinaire Lisa Von Drasek (who raved about how she couldn’t put down Invisible I), other panelists included Scholastic’s David Levithan, 39 Clues author Peter Lerangis, and Jennifer Cowan, author of Earthgirl. The conversation ranged from the process and challenges involved in creating multimedia series to the fundamental importance of strong narrative.

And, over Internet Week, Ariel Aberg-Riger, FSM’s Creative Development & Marketing Manager, spoke on the panel Beyond Facebook: How Will Today’s Students Use the Web of Tomorrow? Hosted by “the librarian of the internet” Finding Dulcinea, panelists included Unigo’s Jordan Goldman, Kate Hillis of Next Next Entertainment and Qwidget, James Rohrbach of Gulliver Go, and Inigral’s Michael Stanton. Focusing on ways to encourage user participation and user generated content, panelists discussed their start-ups and predicted how students will expect to interact with content, brands, and companies in the future.

For coverage of the panels, check out our press section.