Friday, February 14, 2014

A Visit with StoryPress at RootsTech

During RootsTech, I had a nice meeting with the people behind StoryPress. They describe it as a digital Pinterest for stories.

Here is a video of CEO and creator of StoryPress explaining the concept and his motivation behind it:




Story collecting apps and websites are de rigueur now. It seems like everyone has one and I usually don't get excited when someone wants me to review theirs. However, I really liked this one. It was different. It held my attention and made me want to explore others' stories.

There are numerous features to guide users through the process. You are given a template as a story guide.

Questions are provided as audio prompts to get your stories started. You can include photos, video or both in your story. The finished product is like a small movie of a particular story in your family. Imagine having several of these from various family members. Quite a treasure.

(Example of what the story prompt will look like)

Each story can be tagged with various subjects like "travel" or "birthday." These descriptors are provided by StoryPress, so you can't customize your own for surnames and such. They stay within the general subject vein, which is fine for mainstream use. However, hardcore genealogists are going to want more descriptors. When that time comes though, I fully expect the StoryPress crew to be receptive to adding more tags.

Your StoryPress stories can be public or private. The public ones can be searched and browsed by subject. I must admit, it was fun looking at other people's stories. This is a magnificent time-waster for when you're avoiding other things.



I was told StoryPress will be a go on April 1, 2014. At that time it will be free to have an account. You will be able to "like" and comment on others' stories. You will be able to follow your favorite authors. Most importantly, you will be able to record your own family's stories.



I was promised more updates by the StoryPress crew closer to the launch date. I'll keep you posted. Until then, here is another teaser video:







3 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for the post! We at StoryPress are glad to hear that others are excited, and we ourselves are excited to bring the app to life so that the genealogy community can use and explore it. We love this blog and we were so excited to meet and speak with you at RootsTech! Looking forward to the next time our paths cross.

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  2. Your GrandMa really lucky. Best wishes to her.

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  3. Amy, I didn't get to these guys at RootsTech! Drat! I have hours of recorded interviews with family members and this is the perfect way to share with other family members. I'll be watching very closely for the launch.

    i am wondering what file format the stories are created in. Just because technology will change as do companies. We need to be able to migrate our story files.

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