There were a lot of strong reactions to the announcement that Storify was shutting down. Many instructors, in particular, were caught unprepared, with assignments using the platform due imminently. I was left wondering what I would do with the archives and presentations I had curated over the years (!!) using Storify. As I often do, I took to Twitter to see if in the interim, anyone had come across an alternative.
Enter Wakelet.
It is billing itself as an alternative to Storify, allowing you easy one-click import of your stories from Storify once you create an account. The interface for creating new “collections” (which is what Wakelet is calling their “stories”) is simple and streamlined, allowing you to select which format you want your collection to appear. It doesn’t have a “search” feature directly in the interface, but my experience with Storify was that that particular feature was glitchy.
I imported all 50 of my Storify stories pretty easily, and while I didn’t go through all of them, the ones that I spot-checked seemed to be working. Interestingly, it saves each individual entry as a separate saved item. There is also a a Chrome extension that allows you to “save” links in said list of saved item, to be able to add to a collection later.
Of course, the platform would have the same limitations as Storify, if they were to ever decide to close up shop as well. At least, in theory, you would be able to expert your saved links and such, but that’s not clear anywhere on the interface. But, in the meantime, if you’re looking for something to replace Storify, Wakelet is the tool to use.
Now, if someone could come up with one for Wikispaces, that would be great.
[Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash]
