When Storify recently announced that they’d be shutting down May 16 2018 - and deleting all users’ content in the process - longtime users of the tool started speaking up. Years of users’ painstakingly curated content and archives will suddenly disappear once the company begins its cleanup, leading Storify users to scramble and try to save what they can. Storify has already blocked new signups from its website. A note on the company’s homepage reads: “Thank you to everyone who has contributed stories to our Storify community. Unfortunately, we are no longer allowing new users to sign up and will end existing users' access to Storify.com on May 16, 2018.”
In response, Wakelet (a free tool that provides similar functionality to Storify) is quickly stepping up to give Storify users a new, free “home” for their content with no technical work-arounds or effort required.
Wakelet’s Callum Nightingale states, “Storify was a great platform with an admirable mission - it’s sad to see them leaving this space. With them closing their doors, we want to offer people a fresh and powerful alternative that will help them curate content and share stories. By enabling people to export their Storify links to Wakelet, they can pick up right where they left off”
That’s an appealing offer for the thousands of displaced Storify users who must quickly find a way to export and save their content collections before the company permanently deletes it. Social media is absolutely buzzing with panicked ex-Storify users wondering how to move their content in time.
Nightingale understands their predicament well. “In real-time social media streams, good content gets buried quickly. We encounter this daily, in both our personal and professional lives, and we wanted to do something about it - augmenting, not replacing search engines and social sites to add context.
We created Wakelet to address these drawbacks and bring a human touch to this process, making it easier for people to take control of the content that interests, inspires, and excites them. It’s only fitting that we would welcome ex-Storify users to export their collections and try Wakelet as an alternative. Why start over when you can easily move your content at no cost?”
Wakelet exists to help users organize and personalize their online content into collections, along with offering functionality to help users collaborate and share their collections with others. Storify also offered these features, but after the startup was purchased by digital marketing company Livefyre in 2013, they found themselves on a slippery acquisition slope. Adobe eventually acquired Livefyre in March of 2016, and it was a business decision that “sealed Storify’s fate as a free service,” according to Fast Company.
“Since Livefyre was acquired by Adobe in March 2016, we’ve been fully integrating and aligning the product with Adobe Experience Cloud and its enterprise solutions,” and Storify was deemed an offering that “doesn’t fit in this strategy,” a Livefyre spokesperson told TechCrunch.
With the sudden shutdown announcement and deletion of users’ content, the solution may consist of not only finding a suitable alternative tool, but also choosing a tool that is committed to their users and not strategic acquisitions. With Wakelet rising up from Storify’s ashes, I hope to see Storify users export their content and keep collecting and sharing content online with the help of this ambitious tool. You can start importing your Storify content over to a free Wakelet account using their easy import tool.
What do you think of the Storify shutdown? Are you a Storify user considering switching to Wakelet? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!