Storify: The Lifesaver in a Sea of Social Media

Move over – or maybe it’s come together? – Twitter, Flickr and Youtube, there’s a new kid in town, and it’s trying to sort you all out. Storify, the latest social media start-up, launched for the public at the beginning of this week and aims to search through all the amateur journalists using social media to tell a story in order to get a comprehensive view on an event.

Storify, based in San Francisco, was started by Burt Herman, a former Associated Press reporter, and Xavier Damman, an engineer. The founders created Storify to fill the need of the people to organize and consolidate the information they spread through multiple media sites into one collective story. These stories are essentially shared as collages. Media can be pulled from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, other Stories on Storify, Google and RSS feeds – all a storyteller needs is a search term and a story to tell.

This product has a real possibility to change the face of social media. By finally being able to fish through the sea of information which we all currently swim in with and without life vests will bring meaning and legitimate journalism to social media. The product was originally tested with major news outlets like NPR, who used it to cover things like the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. The reporter, Andy Carvin, quickly realized the implications of not only what is being told, but how it is being told and how the reactions of others affect how we comprehend news.

For now, Storify remains a free service, but the founders are considering charging for advertising and the use of the site by brands. Until then, the founders are “really trying to put together computer science plus storytelling and journalism to think creatively about how you can blend the two worlds” says Herman. Who knows, maybe the story of Storify will soon be worth telling.