I’ve been meaning to dive into Storify for a while, mostly because I’d like to see the Star Tribune using it more, whether for breaking news or features that invite readers to share with us. While working my regular Saturday online shift (mostly for the iPad), I decided to try Storify using the best breaking news I could find. Today, that meant the massive election protests in Moscow.
I quickly sorted through some images and tweets, digging in the New York Times’ Lede Blog to check out who they had in Moscow and to read through some of their featured Twitter streams. Then I ran some image searches. Voila. In less than 45 minutes, I had created a decent stream with some very nice photos, a couple of which were take by aerial drone flights. Very cool.
I almost didn’t publish the story – and I didn’t send out a tweet or alert the people whose tweets I quoted – so I was super surprised about an hour later when I started getting pinged all over Twitter. Storify had pulled my story into its featured spot and tweeted to its 18,000 followers with this tease: “Absolutely stunning photos from social media as tens of thousands protest in #Russia – from @onecolleen: http://storify.com/onecolleen/tens-of-thousands-protest-russian-election.” (In the image above, you can see how the story is featured on their home page.)
Based on the Storify tweet, that link was shared all over the place, including by some social media heavyweights such as Anthony De Rosa (@antderosa), Reuters social media editor.
Very, very cool!
I know I’ve just scratched the surface with Storify, and I can’t wait to dig deeper.
My goal for the week: Storify at least one thing for the Star Tribune.
