Examples of stories using interactive tools

In some emails last week and in my post on a workshop last Friday, I asked for examples of effective use of interactive storytelling tools.

Below are examples sent by some friends. I haven’t had a chance to check them all out, but I trust these friends’ judgment, so I pass them along enthusiastically. With the exception of Mike Reilley, all the examples come from my former colleagues at Digital First Media. I was seeking enterprise examples, but they sent interactive stories from a variety of situations. I think in many of these cases, other colleagues were involved. I wasn’t asking just for their own work, but for good work they had seen lately. With light editing, the list is pretty much what they sent me.

Buffy Andrews’ interactive stories

Buffy, assistant managing editor at the York Daily Record and a novelist, sent along these:

Quizzes built using PlayBuzz:

Camp Security quiz

York Fair quiz

Star-Spangled Banner quiz

DePauw University History quiz

List built with Playbuzz 

Camp Security list

Thinglink example

An interactive flyer on Buffy’s books

Dipity timeline

Jeff Koons timeline

TimelineJS examples

Jeff Koons retrospective timeline

DePauw University history

Layar

Using Layar to enrich print

Soundcite

Using Soundcite to enrich text

RebelMouse 

York Fair

Tom Corbett

Tom Wolf

NewHive

Remember Series

StoryMap JS

Using Storymap JS

Snapwidget

Using Snapwidget

Examples from Don Wyatt

Don, who leads Digital First Media’s newsrooms in Michigan, sent these examples from his Michigan colleagues:

​Example 1: ScribbleLive

Lisa Jonaitis used ScribbleLive to live cover ​a car tour through mid-M​ichigan. The Morning Sun had journalists at all different points and pulled in social user-generated content as well.

​Example 2: Dipity​

​Nichole Sequin used Dipity to create a map showing the history of Michigan tornadoes. The map ran on the anniversary of a particularly bad twister in Macomb County.

Examples 3 & 4: Google Fusion/Google Maps mashup

Nichole used Google Fusion to map fireworks displays across the state. The data was gleaned from a fireworks afficionado web site. This map ran with stories advancing local Fourth of July fireworks shows.

Nichole and Charlie Crumm teamed up to map Oakland County foreclosures for a story about how the county’s housing market, while showing signs of rebounding from the recession, was still not healthy. The data came from the Oakland County assessor’s office. Each dot represents a distressed property:

Erica McClain examining real estate prices in southeast Michigan. The data comes from the RealComp.

Other data experiments, by software platform:

• Storify
• NewHive
• Thinglink
• Dipity on Great Lakes ice and holiday movies
• Google Maps
• Google Fusion
• Google Fusion ()
• Video
• Scribd
• Datawrapper
• Datawrapper
• Datawrapper
• Spundge

Examples from Mike Reilley

Mike, who teaches at DePaul, sent along these examples from his students’ work on the Red Line Project:

Timeline JS

9/11 timeline

History of the World Cup

100 Years of Wrigley Field

StoryMap JS

World Cup team profiles

Chicago rising rent

Foundation (scroll telling that’s responsive)

Chicago drag queens

Homeless on CTA trains in winter

Storify

Chicago’s Weekend Homicides and Gun Violence (a one-year project)

Data visualization

Election 2014 preview (We used nine pieces of software on this project, including Tableau Public.)

Mapping

2013 Chicago homicides (ran with gun violence package)

Chicago’s contaminated beaches (map link is on story rail)

Dan Petty’s example

As a Kansas City Chiefs fan, it pains me that this project has had so much good content. But it’s still a good example from Dan, the Denver Post’s digital director for sports.

I’ve always been proud of our Denver Broncos gametracker, which combines live photos, video, stats and updates from ScribbleLive. We’re hoping to re-add a module for RebelMouse into this to curate social photos, but it seemed a bit redundant with the the SL blog the best place to do it. It’s proven hugely popular since we debuted it last year during the playoffs. It live updates the scores right from sports direct (basically, it’s a web app that’s response and looks great on tablet and phone). And it’s something we built entirely on our own.

C.J. Sinner’s examples

These examples come from C.J. Sinner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Thinglink: “How the Green Line Trains work”

Timeline (we always use Timeline JS): Michele Bachmann’s career. We do the political ones a lot when someone prominent leaves or dies.

Map (A combo of Fusion Tables and a code template): Find Your Storm Drain

Mashup (combo of Fusion Tables + Datawrapper for the table): School funding changes

 

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