Storify website uses Twitter to give the whole story in a linear timeline

By Katie Grivna

At a conference a few weeks ago, I listened to SMU professor Jake Batsell and cbsdfw.com’s Kent Chapline discuss how social media and convergence journalism influence the way media outlets learned and share information, particularly the tales of the Super Bowl XLV ticket fiasco.

They told us about Storify, a website that combines tweets, videos and photos about a certain topic or by a certain person into one linear story.

The Dallas Morning News used Storify to view all Jake Batsell’s tweets from the Super Bowl. Here is what it looks like:



After visiting Storify’s website, I thought about all the different ways you can use it. For members of the media, Storify offers an easy way to research topics or people through Twitter. For companies, public relations professionals can use this tool to listen to what people are saying about their product or brand.

So I decided to create an account and learn how to make a Storify story.

After creating an account with Storify, you can create a story using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Flickr, RSS feeds or any URL you choose.

After you select the content, add a headline, photo and subhead before publishing the story. Then Storify will give you a code to embed it and let you notify the sources you used in the timeline.

Here is a Storify timeline of Twitter mentions of blog posts for the Eagle Strategies blog from the last few days.