Boston residents were introduced to Tikatok CEO Sharon Kan on the Fox 25 Morning News this week, July 7th.  Sharon talked a bit about her inspiration for creating the site, and shared some books from our child authors.  Watch the video.

The Boston Globe also alerted its readers to our Summer Reading event held outside the Boston Public Library on Tuesday afternoon.  It was a great event with several Tikatok authors sharing their stories with the public and emcee Adora Svitak, a young author and new member of the Tikatok Children’s Advisory Board.  Here is the notice.  Stay tuned for an update featuring pictures from the event!

Another Boston newspaper, the Herald, ran a story advising J.K. Rowling to “watch your back” because she’s got some new competition from child authors on Tikatok.  The original story is now behind the Herald subscription wall, but thankfully the Denver Post also picked up the story.

It was a busy week for our CEO indeed, as the Manic Mommies hosted a podcast with our intrepid leader as their special guest.

Wanted to share some more kind words about Tikatok from blogs during the last week or so.

Pixie Stix Kids Pix is an amazing blog covering the world of children’s books with tons of book reviews, author and illustrator profiles, and news about the latest trends.  In her review of Tikatok, editor Kristen McLean says, “there have been self-publishing projects for kids in the past, but never have they been so kid-centered, user-friendly, or so interactive.”  Thanks Kristen!

andStartup offers reviews of new startups every day and they do a really great job of breaking down the key information about each company fast while providing in-depth reviews for those who want more detail.  We couldn’t ask for better praise than their review of Tikatok, which calls the site “one of the best ideas for children that I have seen online for a long time.”

Thanks again to the blogging community that has been so generous in their support of our site!

Well I’ve just become addicted to Twitter for my own personal use and thought that Tikatok users might like the opportunity to get the most fast-breaking site updates, gain insight to even the most insignificant thoughts of the Tikatok team, and have a(nother) direct line of communication with us.  So if you have a Twitter account (and if you don’t, you know you want one), search for Tikatok and add us to your follow list.  Look forward to seeing you there.  And one of these days I’ll figure out how to add our tweets to the blog.

We were thrilled to see Tikatok featured in a pair of high profile blogs this week.

Wired’s Ken Denmead, co-editor of the ever popular GeekDad blog, shared Tikatok with readers on Saturday.  I’ve mentioned GeekDad before as a wonderful resource for parents who want to take very active roles in their children’s lives, especially when that means working on fun DIY-style projects together.  It has been an inspirational blog for a (very) soon-to-be father like myself.

Simply Stated, blog for the lifestyle magazine Real Simple, called Tikatok an “interactive and inspired website” in a detailed post, courtesy of “Manic Mommy” Erin.  It is clear that she spent some time with the site, and we appreciate her positive comments as well as her suggestions.  She asks at the end of the article, “I wonder whether I can skip the whole story part and just have all of my son’s artwork from the previous school year made into a hardcover book?”  In fact, Tikatok does make this possible.  Our members are invited to send us their original drawings and we will happily scan them, upload them to their account, and ship the originals back, all for free.  See detailed instructions in the FAQ.

Both blogs, and a few commenters, mentioned how Tikatok exploits a similar concept as other print-on-demand self-publishers like Blurb and Lulu.  And while we are happy to be associated with those excellent sites, I did want to point out some qualities that we think makes Tikatok distinct.  First, Tikatok provides added privacy protection and moderation, to make the site safe for children while still a place where they can meaningfully express themselves.  Second, we provide writing help and inspiration in the form of our StorySparks system, a database of interactive story prompts that can be a starting point for brainstorming.  Third, we make writing social by enabling collaboration between kids.  And finally, all of our free tools are entirely Web-based and designed to be very user-friendly, there is no software to download and install.  The book you create right on the Web is automatically formatted into something that can be printed as a real paperback or hardcover.  We think Tikatok offers the best bookmaking experience for kids (but of course we’re always open to your comments and suggestions).

Thanks again Ken and Erin!

At Tikatok, we’re always happy to see the creativity of kids being encouraged and celebrated, so I had to smile when I read about the Doodle 4 Google contest, and came across this interview with the winner. California 6th-grader Grace Moon beat out 16,000 other budding artists to have her take on Google’s iconic logo featured on the front page for a day, where it was viewed by over 100 million people.

While Tikatok can’t yet claim that our child authors receive that kind of traffic to their books and drawings, we do take pride in the fact that ALL of our users have the ability to share their work on our front page. And because competition does tend to inspire some kids to greatness, it is in this spirit that I chose what I consider to be the best illustrations in our community gallery (so far).

Parent Hacks posted yesterday about a site that may be of interest to our readers.  Totlol uses its community of parents and kids to curate the best online videos that are appropriate for kids aged 6 months to 6 years.  Parents who join collectively decide which of the videos submitted for moderation make it through to be seen by the kids.  An interesting way of creating a unique “slice” of YouTube content, while solving the age-old problem of age-appropriateness.

Over the last month, Tikatok has really started to make a splash in the media.  We were proud to welcome visitors from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area who saw Tikatok featured on ABC-affiliate KSTP.  Web manager Justin Piehowski gave us a very positive mention, and gave a few of our members a reason to feel very proud by singling out his favorite books on the site.  Thanks Justin!   Be sure to check out his Internet Insite archives for tons of useful sites you may have missed.

Many of our members may not realize that Tikatok runs offline storytelling and bookmaking workshops for many schools and libraries.  The word must be getting out, because the School Library Journal mentioned Tikatok in its SLJ’s Extra Helpings section.

Another local TV news program, WPXI in Pittsburg, featured Tikatok in their 11 Clicks roundup of interesting and helpful websites.

It’s exciting to see how people are discovering Tikatok around the US, and around the world.  We are so happy to bring the great books that our members have created to new audiences, and to welcome new members to the site.

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord has devoted her life to something obviously very close to our own hearts here at Tikatok: engaging teachers, parents, and children in the activity of making their own books. She provides tips and instruction on her website, video demonstrations, and even a blog about her latest projects. Her approach is very crafty and low-tech, making her projects a perfect compliment to our own web-based tools. Check out her sites for some inspirational ideas.

We are getting some really positive notices about Tikatok in the blogosphere this week. Here are a few of the bloggers who have taken note.

Dr. Henry Jenkins, my mentor at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program did an extensive interview with myself and Tikatok co-founder and CTO Orit Zuckerman about the thinking behind the site. The first part of the interview has us talking about our goals, the value of participatory culture, and the relationship between games and writing.

Larry Ferlazzo, an English teacher and blogger over at edublogs chose Tikatok as one of his Websites of the Day, and proclaims “Tikatok is Great.” Thanks Larry! Always wonderful to hear from teachers who see the educational potential in the site. Check out his site for tons more helpful links.

Sandbox World, an online magazine about children’s culture, gave us a shout out and predicts that we will become the “talk of the block.”

Not really a blog, but Kai submitted our site to Killer Startups, a site for spreading the news about new Web companies. Check out our profile and give us a bump up if you are so inclined.

Thank you to all of the bloggers who have shared their experiences with our site with their readers!

Mother’s Day is fast approaching and we wanted to offer our writers the opportunity to create a most unique gift for their moms. So, if you create and order a book by April 26, we are offering free shipping and guaranteed delivery of your book by Mother’s Day, which is May 11.

And to give you a start on your book we have created some new StorySparks where mom is the main character. A few of these StorySparks are a bit different, providing prompts for child and parent to write the story together! We think that writing a story WITH mom may be the best mother’s day gift, and for those that want to keep it a surprise, there’s a StorySpark that Dad can get in on too. To access these new templates, follow this link:

http://beta.tikatok.net/create/terms/mother

We’ll feature some of the best Mother’s Day books on this blog as it gets closer to the day. In the meantime, here is an appropriate title one of our writers from the Boston Public Library event created.