Review: tell your conference story with Storify

Storify helps you collect media from across the web and paste it together into a story that you can share online. Using media from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and more, you can create a story of highlights by hand-picking the content you want to include.

You can also add your own text in-between content.

Our favourite features

Finding elements to add to your story couldn’t be any easier. The bookmarklet lets you capture media as you browse the web and the search bar helps you find posts on various social networks. When you find what you want to use, the drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to add and rearrange elements in your story.

As you drag-and-drop each piece of content into your story, the original post details remain.

Storify has included social features like following stories and users, liking stories and a comments box on each story. However, the original content retains its social features. Each post included in your story includes options like retweeting and replying, as well as the ability to share single posts on other social networks.

The notify feature helps you reach out to the users who are included in your story.

With the embed option, you can create a story and embed it on your blog or website. You can then update the story as your event unfolds, pushing updates to the embedded version automatically. This is a handy option for live-updates during your conference.

The finished product.

What we’d like to see

Improved recommendations:
The related-stories sidebar could be a useful feature, but at the moment it seems to be hit-and-miss. More users and more content on the platform might improve this feature.

Brighter design:
The current design uses a lot of black and grey, boxy shapes and hard edges. A softer, lighter design would make it more appealing.

Our top 5 tips for using Storify at events

Keep in mind the available services when creating content.
Although there are ways to use content from anywhere on the web, it’s much easier to grab content from the networks that are already integrated.

Capture a variety of media types.
Using sound, images and videos as well as blog posts and short text updates will make your story more interesting. This will also provide a more well-rounded look at your event.

Monitor updates during your event.
Adding content to favourites lists will make them easier to find when you start creating your story.

Use ifttt.com to collect content automatically.
Ifttt offers a bunch of tasks to help you add media to your storypad, which acts like a content holding pen, or into a draft story. This will free you up to enjoy your event without missing any useful content.

Install the browser bookmarklet.
With a couple of clicks, you can easily collect content as you browse the web. This gives you a nice stack of media in your storypad to create a story from later.

Find out more about Storify

How to curate conversations with Storify
Storify and the search for curation
How Storify and Pinterest are cultivating the wild web and why social media will civilize the Internet