Citia iPad App Reimagines the eBook: Makes Digital Reading Faster, More Social, and More Intuitive
NEW YORK, June 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- In partnership with major publishers including Penguin and HarperCollins, as well as Perseus and O'Reilly Media, Citia is reinventing the reading experience by turning digital books into fast-moving, shareable, 3D reading experiences.
A new app making its debut on the iPad, Citia transforms serious nonfiction books, optimizing them for digital devices and giving them social skills traditional eBooks can't match. Using professional writers, editors, and designers, Citia reorganizes and condenses popular business/technology titles into a series of ideas and presents them to readers in a virtual index card-based system. The 'idea cards' for each book live in a 3D interface that allows readers to dive straight into the ideas that most interest them, discover and explore new concepts, and share beautifully designed excerpts with everyone in their social graph.
Citia's card-based system frees eBooks from their constraining PDF format; designed specifically around the touchscreen, it offers a game-like experience with intuitive navigation and rich content that can be e-mailed, tweeted, or posted to Facebook. Readers will also have the ability to highlight passages and save individual cards.
Citia has established partnerships with major publishers including Penguin, HarperCollins, Perseus, and O'Reilly Media, with plans to transform some of the most buzzworthy books at the intersection of business, technology, and culture. Citia unveiled its first downloadable title, What Technology Wants (Penguin) by tech philosopher and Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly. Citia's version of the book, available for $9.99 in the App Store, allows readers to explore Kelly's provocative ideas about technology as a living, evolving organism.
"I'm gobsmacked by the amount and quality of writing you've put into this," said Kelly, of the Citia version of his book. "You've managed to digest the entire book and make it sing as well. I found it fast moving, yet deep and clear. I am really proud to be associated with this experiment and honored you have given my work such close attention and care."
Linda Holliday, Founder and CEO of Citia, said she started the company because our media haven't evolved as quickly as our hardware -- or our reading habits. "eBooks haven't actually changed the way we read. They're simply digitized versions of the same medium that's been around since Gutenberg," she says. "We see this as a moment when reading is truly reinvented for new devices-made smarter, more visual, more social, and more fun. Readers can now find and communicate ideas much more effectively than ever before and book publishers can leverage social media to reach consumers like never before."
Holliday is a serial entrepreneur with numerous investments in digital media. To build Citia's apps she has brought in top writers and editors with decades of experience in books and national magazines.
For more information contact:
Dawn Bridges, [email protected], 917.679.7390
Deanna Davis, [email protected], 917.232.2432
SOURCE Citia
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