Well we've joined the app revolution, we now
have an "app for that", we've been dragged kicking and screaming
into the 21st Century but have we just jumped on the app
bandwagon? We hope not.
So what does the app do? Well it's an
alphabetical zoo tour of all the animals at Folly Farm which
includes a little information about each animal, some fast facts to
impress your friends and for some of our most popular animals (or
those which we could film on stage!) there's also a keeper talk
video.
So why did we launch it? We wanted
to enhance the experience of a visit to Folly Zoo by providing a
portable zoo tour and with so many households now having an iPhone,
iPod Touch or iPad, an app seemed like the ideal technology to
deliver this. We felt it was an engaging way to educate
visitors about our animals as often people don't stop to read signs
and we can't physically deliver keeper talks on all the zoo
animals. We also had in mind that the app would double up as
a useful learning tool for non-visitors so that parents may
use it to entertain and educate their kids, or teenagers might use
it to learn facts about popular zoo animals.
So how did we do it? Well the app itself
was created by the "app"solutely brilliant Writemedia
(also the team behind our award-winning website!) and it is fed by
our extremely clever content management system, meaning every
time we add a new animal to our Meet the Animals database it updates
the app. Neat little way of letting our app
subscribers know of a new arrival eh?! The videos were
filmed using green screen technology (very Hollywood!) so that Tim,
our zoo manager and the animals could be super-imposed on the
jungle-like background with the waving leaves.
So how can you get it? It's free to
download from the App Store by searching for Folly Farm or Zoo Tour
or you can download it by clicking on the app icon below.
