Featured Startup on Azure - Booktrack

It turns out that if you track a person's reading speed, and then match that speed with a song played at a pace with the reading, a person will comprehend more and retain more. This is what Paul Cameron, CEO of Booktrack, discovered with research from NYU while he was building the company.  Booktrack  is a company based in New Zealand. You can find them on Twitter @Booktrk 

It's a fact that should make a whole bunch of teachers and students happy. And we're happy to say that BookTrack is a featured Azure startup in BizSpark. BizSpark is a program that offers free software and free Azure hosting to startups building for the cloud. You can sign up your own startup for this three year program here, if you are less than three years old and making less then $1 million in revenue each year. 

Key phrase: Paul Cameron on his biggest "aha" moment when building Booktrack. Our initial reading speed algorithm implementation to match sound to text to the user’s reading speed, and the NYU research that proved an increase in comprehension and retention when reading with a Booktrack soundtrack.

Interview

BizSpark:   Tell us who you are and your role in the company.

Paul Cameron:   CEO

BizSpark:   What is your company’s mission?

Paul Cameron: To create the platform for a new genre of entertainment content – soundtracks for books .

BizSpark:   In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does.

Paul Cameron:   Booktrack is creating the standard and platform for a new genre of entertainment content that provides synchronized movie-style soundtracks to eBooks.

BizSpark:   Tell us about your Azure-based solution.

Paul Cameron:   We use Azure for the following services: 1. Content Delivery Network for our client application (running on Windows, Mac, iOS & Android) to deliver Book and soundtrack content. 2. Registration Database so we can interact with our user base.

BizSpark:   How is Azure implemented in your solution? 

Paul Cameron:   Currently the main purpose of using Azure is providing a Content Delivery Network for our client application delivering eBook and soundtrack content to our applications.

BizSpark:   How did you get excited about Azure?

Paul Cameron:   Scale, simplicity and cost to provide a cloud based system to our users

BizSpark:   What were the Azure features that prompted you to decide to build on Azure?

Paul Cameron:   The potential to scale was the main benefit. Although currently our main purpose in using Azure is to provide a CDN, our future roadmap includes using Azure as a platform to provide services such as a content store, account system and user portal.

BizSpark:  What specific value are you getting from BizSpark beyond the technology?

Paul Cameron:   The main benefits are the easy access to the latest Microsoft software, resources, and advice.

BizSpark:  What has been your biggest “aha” moment since founding your company?

Paul Cameron:   Our initial reading speed algorithm implementation to match sound to text to the user’s reading speed, and the NYU research that proved an increase in comprehension and retention when reading with a Booktrack soundtrack.

BizSpark:   What advice do you have for companies that are thinking about building in the cloud?

Paul Cameron:   Highly recommended.  The flexibility, ease of integration & reduced cost made it a simple choice for Booktrack.

BizSpark:   What is the one thing that you would like readers to take away about your Azure app?

Paul Cameron:   Using Azure is a cost-effective way to access scalable, near limitless content distribution and processing power.