I don't know if I'm late to the party with this but I've just discovered Storybird
and, let me tell you, it's an amazing website. So brilliantly simple, effective (and free - essential for me to try something for the first time) and engaging - I think it has great opportunities for journalists who want to tell, collaborate with others and share stories online.
In a nutshell, Storybird is a sharing site that allows you to make, illustrate and publish online your own stories. I signed up, skipped the 'this is how it works' video and plunged in to create my own story.
As I typed in text, images suggested themselves (I love that for Typical British Weather it offered me a little cartoon cricketer) and there are lots of artist illustrations to choose from. Most, but not all, are cutesy but since I'd only suggest Storybird be used to illustrate ligher-hearted articles (or as stand-alones) I don't think it matters.
Here's my first attempt (I only noticed the spelling error once I'd published it. Sigh) UPDATE: Storybird suffered a 'server outrage' on Christmas Eve and emailed me to say my story was one of a dozen that had been lost. Irritatingly, instead of displaying a message that says this story is now irretrievable, it says it has been set to private. It hasn't - it simply doesn't exist any more. I would prefer if Storybird had made this clear, rather than pretending I'd made the story private, especially since I've been offline for several days, and therefore unable to do anything about that incorrect message.
Most, but not all, of the illustrations offered up are cutesy but since I'd only suggest Storybird be used to illustrate ligher-hearted articles (or as stand-alones) I don't think it matters. You can have collaborative Storybird tales, with multiple authors, and they can also be open-ended.
The stories carry embed codes and badges, which is a huge plus as far as I'm concerned. I'm definitely going to be using this on the Liverpool Daily Post site soon, as Arts Editor Laura Davis and I are plotting an Online Literary Festival (more of which anon). And I could see this fitting into the scheme of things brilliantly as one way for our readers to get involved.
Anyway, in case I haven't been quite clear on my feelings, Storybird is GREAT. It's in public beta so do sign up and have a go. I haven't been so thrilled with an online discovery since I made my first toon using Xtranormal.
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and, let me tell you, it's an amazing website. So brilliantly simple, effective (and free - essential for me to try something for the first time) and engaging - I think it has great opportunities for journalists who want to tell, collaborate with others and share stories online.
As I typed in text, images suggested themselves (I love that for Typical British Weather it offered me a little cartoon cricketer) and there are lots of artist illustrations to choose from. Most, but not all, are cutesy but since I'd only suggest Storybird be used to illustrate ligher-hearted articles (or as stand-alones) I don't think it matters.
Most, but not all, of the illustrations offered up are cutesy but since I'd only suggest Storybird be used to illustrate ligher-hearted articles (or as stand-alones) I don't think it matters. You can have collaborative Storybird tales, with multiple authors, and they can also be open-ended.
The stories carry embed codes and badges, which is a huge plus as far as I'm concerned. I'm definitely going to be using this on the Liverpool Daily Post site soon, as Arts Editor Laura Davis and I are plotting an Online Literary Festival (more of which anon). And I could see this fitting into the scheme of things brilliantly as one way for our readers to get involved.
Anyway, in case I haven't been quite clear on my feelings, Storybird is GREAT. It's in public beta so do sign up and have a go. I haven't been so thrilled with an online discovery since I made my first toon using Xtranormal.
1 comment:
Alison,
We're sorry to read you were annoyed by our setting the Storybird to private after the data outage.
Unfortunately, the remnants of the dozen or so that were affected weren't in any presentable format. We don't have a setting or message for "irretrievable" since this has never happened before. So our choice was either a confusing "page not found" message or the private setting. As it was Christmas eve and we weren't able to contact our members easily, we opted for the private message and explained why in our email.
We certainly were not trying to pretend or hide anything. If you felt we bungled the situation—we understand and are sorry.
We're working hard to ensure things like this don't happen again, from changing our backup provider to increasing the frequency of our system saves. We're at a 0.0004% loss rate, but we want it to be perfect—particularly since any loss is irritating or upsetting to the author.
We hope you'll continue to experiment and play with Storybird during our beta. And, if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. I'm mark [at] storybird [dot] com.
Cheers.
Mark Ury
Cofounder, Storybird
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