More and more news organizations are creating interactive graphics that help users explore and understand their worlds. Some are pretty basic, others are more visually appealing, but all serve the same function of bringing data to life.
On the hunt for some new examples, I searched a Twitter chat last week and found a boatload, along with some very helpful tweets from expert users. What to do with it all?
Enter Storify, a beta site that describes itself as a tool for telling stories using social media. I’d signed up for the service a few months ago but hadn’t tested it so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Read the Storify story through to the end for a few lessons learned.
Now about those lessons learned. Don’t try to use Storify to go back and find the tweets you want to include. Mark them as favorites and they’ll show up in the Storify interface. Much simpler!
Consider whether the story you’re going to tell really makes the best use of what Storify can do. This one probably doesn’t, consisting mostly of tweets and links. It’s not as visually appealing as I would have liked.
That said, Storify makes it incredibly easy to share stories on Twitter and Facebook and to embed them on a website or blog. I’ll be keeping my eye out for other ways to use it. If you’ve tried it, let us know where to find your Storify stories.
