October 10, 2011
Back in May we reported about Storify and discussed how it will be extremely interesting to see if social media curation platforms would get adopted by the mainstream in the same way blogs and Twitter have.
It was clear that Storify was an intriguing concept but it needed to ensure it was recognised as the place to go when major ‘events’ occur.
Recent months have shown that Storify and social media curation has grown up. It is becoming recognised as a popular and leading service that a number of brands and publications are using to promote content and tell stories, just like blogging. If you haven’t yet used Storify, it allows you to aggregate social media content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and other platforms to quickly and easily build stories.
The White House, The Guardian, Mashable and The New York Times are just some of the prestigious institutions which have used Storify to drag and drop social media content into an attractive and easy to read timelines.
So how has Storify grown up?
- Growth in User Numbers
In the week beginning 5th September 2011 Storify reached a new peak at 46,493 connections and the top story of that week had over 288,000 views. The previous peak was at 43,000 with #ukriots in August 2011.
Some examples of recent popular stories include REM breaking up and streams of photos and updates of events on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
These stories highlight the breadth of topics that Storify can help showcase. Storify provides a resourceful and appealing way to aggregate conversations and content about an ‘event’ that has gained a lot of attention and is a useful way to display the range of opinions and thoughts in one central hub.
- Storify now helps with Search Engine Optimisation
Storify also helps with search engine optimisation. Co-founder Xavier Damman claimed that this has been the company’s most-requested feature from users. Storify now allows their content to be published out onto the servers of the most popular blogging platforms – such as WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous and Drupal – using XML-RPC to push permanent, search engine-friendly HTML.
This change means that content will live there permanently, will be indexed by search engines and will help boost search engine optimisation.
- Slideshow and new offerings
Newspapers and other publications will now be able to use Storify to post the same social media stories in a slideshow format as well. All stories on Storify – there are over 100,000 of them – can now be viewed as a slideshow. You can do this by either adding “/slideshow” to the end of the URL or choosing “slideshow” from a drop-down menu within the embed option.
This option will enable Storify to continue to grow. As Damman states “We are using our own API to do the slideshow,” he says. “Anyone can develop a template for displaying a story, this is something that is really new.” This will be of great interest to brands and publications looking to communicate content in new and interesting ways.
It’s this fluidity, flexibility and willingness to listen to users which will see Storify grow and thrive, offering brands the chance to get involved, optimise content and strongly enhances the storytelling offering that brands can provide to users.
Comments