Rooster is a mobile reading service for

iOS7 iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 18 ...

Features

For a $4.99 monthly fee, Rooster releases fiction installments to users' phones. Each set of selections comprises one classic and one contemporary novel or novella. Each installment is also optimized towards the average, fifteen-minute commute. The works can be as long as 500 pages, though the app is also intended as a possible "gateway drug" to works that might require more time than a month of commutes. Users can customize how often and at what time their installment will arrive, as well as text size, font style, and background color. The amount of content is also adjustable, as users can skip to later installments if they choose. Over the course of each month, up to two more books will appear in the app.

Development

Rooster was created by

Jennifer 8. Lee Jennifer 8. Lee (Chinese name: ; pinyin: '; POJ: ') (born March 15, 1976) is an American journalist who previously worked for ''The New York Times''. She is also the co-founder and president of the literary studio Plympton, as well as a produce ...

Yael Goldstein Love Yael Goldstein Love (born 1978) is a novelist, editor and book critic. She is also co-founder and editorial director of the literary studio Plympton. Biography Goldstein Love's first novel was ''The Passion of Tasha Darsky'', originally titled ...

, and former

StumbleUpon StumbleUpon was a discovery and advertisement engine (a form of web search engine) that pushed web content recommendations to its users. Its features allowed users to discover and rate Web pages, photos and videos that are personalized to their ...

engineer Jacqueline Chang, co-founders of

Plympton, Inc. Plympton Inc. is a literary studio founded in 2011 by Jennifer 8. Lee and Yael Goldstein Love. Plympton focuses on publishing serialized fiction for digital platforms, and launched its first series in September 2012 as part of the Kindle Serials ...

Serial fiction has always been Plympton's core product, as well as that of now-partner

DailyLit DailyLit is an online publisher founded in 2006 by Susan Danziger and Albert Wenger. The site distributes stories in serial installments via e-mail and RSS feed. The installments are designed to be read in under five minutes. The first storie ...

, but past series were distributed via Kindle or email. The idea to focus on the iPhone came after Goldstein Love continued hearing people complain they "don't have time to read anything longer than a blog post," even though books like ''

Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary'' (; ), originally published as ''Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners'' ( ), is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and em ...

'' and ''

Great Expectations ''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It ...

'' were once serials in short installments. The name for the program came out of the associations between the bird and early-morning wakefulness. Rooster's release was announced at

SXSW Interactive South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

. It was launched March 10, 2014, in the Apple App Store. Its inaugural literary selections were

Herman Melville Herman Melville (born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); '' Typee'' (1846), a r ...

's ''

Billy Budd ''Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)'' is a novella by American writer Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastily transcribed version was finally published in 1924, it quick ...

'' and "I Was Here," an exclusive. Though it currently focuses on fiction, co-founders hope it will expand to other genres.

Reception

Inc. listed it as one of "5 Game-Changing Startups to Watch."

References

{{reflist IOS software