After several months in private beta, Storify officially launches today. The site allows anyone to build and embed their own storyline of tweets, YouTube clips, Flickr photos and other social media elements. If you’ve ever tried to do this by hand, you can appreciate the ease and simplicity of Storify.
“We have so many real-time streams now, we’re all drowning,” founder Burt Herman told the NY Times. “So the idea of Storify is to pick out the most important pieces, amplify them and give them context.”
Once you’ve created a Storify account, you can drag social media elements into a timeline. You can add your own context around selected items, and when you’re done — embed it wherever you’d like. Publishers like the Washington Post, LA Times and BreakingNews.com have used Storify to build social stories. The new Al Jazeera show, The Stream, even uses Storify to script its live shows.
While first embraced by newsrooms for hard news, Storify can be used by anyone. For example, here’s the BBC’s coverage of the London Marathon using Storify. And you can imagine how brands, PR companies and others could use the tool, as well.
Have a favorite Storify to share? Leave it in comments below…