Publisher Penguin has created a new Google plus application based on the popular children's fiction story "Three Billy Goats Gruff."

Publisher Penguin, in collaboration with ad agency BBH and Google Plus has created a new application the popular children's fiction story "Three Billy Goats Gruff." The application is for Google Plus' new Hangout technology. The application uses a person's webcam o place them in the story, then overlays masks of the characters on top, with the aim being for kids and parents to act out the story while reading it.

"The experience of reading with children is so much more than just the text and the pictures on the page. It's the sound effects, the voices and the funny faces pulled when acting out a character that make it magical - and this app does that in a new and exciting way," says Anna Rafferty, managing director of Penguin Digital.

The new "Storytime Hangout" application is currently in an experimental stage but officials confirm that if it is successful, many more popular stories would be added to the application. However an obstacle the application might face is that for users it relies on adults and not children as you need to be an adult to have a Google account. Also, according to a company report released in 2011, while 500 million people have a Google account, only 135 million people use it for social networking purposes while the others use it only for services like Gmail and YouTube.

Penguin is also aware that it has been criticized for this application for "detracting from traditional parent-child reading."

"While nothing will ever replace the act of snuggling up with a book and reading a story with a child, we're using technology to give it a twist, enabling it to happen at long-distances, and connecting stories and readers as Penguin has always done," says Rafferty.