Content Curation Platform Livefyre Gives Marketers Another Storytelling Tool By Adding Storify2

In 2013, content curation platform Livefyre bought Storify, a tool for combining social posts into a single story.

Today, Livefyre is announcing Storify 2, an updated version that is integrated with the company’s content curation platform, Engagement Cloud. The original Storify will remain in its current form as a free standalone product.

Also announced: Livefyre’s first mobile app, for publishing newly captured images directly to Storify and the Engagement Cloud library. The iOS version is out now, and an Android version is in the works.

The Engagement Cloud, CEO and founder Jordan Kretchmer told me, is “all about [helping] marketers find content useful in marketing campaigns.” To assist that effort, the newest Storify has access to Engagement Cloud’s large library of user-generated content, so as to create thematically connected content — even stories, if you wish — that is composed of grouped-together posts and media content.

The update adds the ability to search, filter and publish tweets, posts, photos and videos for creating entire web pages of connected content. Previously, both Storify and the Engagement Cloud could only embed images in part of a page. Here’s a screen in the Storify2 editor:

And here’s the resulting web page:

Storify 2 also now supports Google Docs-like live collaboration between team members, who can be assigned various rights and functional roles, like reviewing or limited access. Published content is live-streamed to the web page, so the reader sees the update immediately without refreshing the page.

Specific pieces of content in a page can be tagged so that readers can jump immediately to that content via a menu of links that act as chapters. Sidenotes are available for readers to post comments.

The addition of Storify is part of Livefyre’s evolution from a commenting platform into a storytelling one that utilizes user content. One key question is whether these kinds of Storified web pages really add a new tool in a marketer’s toolkit. Social media management platforms, of course, already have the ability to group related user-generated content together, so we’ll see if Storify2 results in any new models for brand storytelling.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.