We’ve always believed that the mission of A Story Before Bed is to connect loved ones through the magic of reading children’s books. Now with over 500 books on our service, we’re proud to deliver on that every day. We have also always believed that preserving these readings in the form of recordings is the most flexible and useful way to make this happen. But we also know that sometimes getting a live bedtime story can be just as nice. Today, we’re proud to announce that you can use A Story Before Bed in realtime.

We’ve accomplished this in partnership with our friends at Google. They have a product called Google+ Hangouts and asked us to build a version of A Story Before Bed for Hangouts. We were thrilled to do it. And now, thanks to A Story Before Bed for Hangouts, grandma in Boston can not only read a bedtime story (at bedtime) to her grandchild in Seattle, but also to her grandchild in Los Angeles, at the very same time. In other words, storytime doesn’t have to be one to one… you can have any number of grandkids in multiple locations gather round the hangout for a bedtime story.

We’re launching today with 25 books. And it’s completely free for all our users. All you need is a Google+ account (which is also free). Just click the Hangout button to get started and have fun!

And to all of you who have used our products, hired us for our services, or just played along at home you have our heartfelt thanks. We’re grateful. Have a wonderful summer. We’l be in touch soon with more good news.