My eldest child spent a lot of her young childhood with a LeapPad on her lap. Introduced in 1999, the LeapPad was an overnight hit that catapulted the maker of the reading device, LeapFrog (NYSE: LF), into stardom with a rocket of a stock to boot. According to the company, LeapFrog went on to sell 30 million LeapPads and related products worldwide, as well as more than 70 million companion books. In 2003, the LeapPad family of products brought in $330 million, nearly half of LeapFrog's revenue. Since then, the company has suffered at the hands of lower-priced competitors, lack of another blockbuster hit (although the firm has has launched critically-acclaimed products), and video games.
So, today's New York Times article, "LeapFrog Hopes for Next Hit with Interactive Reading Toy", may be what the company needs to help an ailing stock. The Tag certainly looks cool. It is a thick, white-and-green plastic stylus that turns paper books into interactive playthings. Like the LeapPad, kids can tap a word with it and the stylus reads the word, or its definition, aloud. They can tap on an image to hear a character's voice come alive.
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