[ddj] StoryBuilder, a new tool for creating NYT-like scrolling stories

[ericnbarrett at gmail.com]

Dear all,

I know this doesn't technically fall into the real of data journalism, but
once you are ready to tell the story, it might come in handy.

We at JumpStart Georgia wanted to do similar mixed-media scrolling stories
like the NYTimes<http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/>does.
We are trying hard to inspire creativity and diversity in the ways
Georgians tell stories, especially local activists, journalists, and NGOs.
We initially built this for us and our stories, but decided it would be way
cool for others to be able to create these types of mixed-media stories
too. Not everyone can use D3 <http://d3js.org/> and code a story like this.

The tool, http://storybuilder.jumpstart.ge/en/,  is mainly only functional
(see the Demo <http://storybuilder.jumpstart.ge/en/storyteller/2>), but
needs, of course, a lot more user interface design. However, it already
works and people can start using it. Some cool features:

   - you build the story in sections and can rearrange them once you have
   created them
   - you can choose whether each section will be text or some type of media
   - you can audio to each section
   - currently, the media we have is screen-size photo and video, but we
   will add a slideshow soon and then others (maybe interactive choropleth
   map, simple charts, ...)
   - the media can have captions and sub-captions
   - you can host your scrolling story on the site itself;
   - you can export, as a zipped file, all the files once you build it, and
   host them on any server you want;
   - you can download the entire app for use in your organization (the
   github link is in the top-right corner - it is a Ruby-on-Rails app)
   - we have started adding templates to it;


Obviously, we still have a lot to do (well, sky's the limit) , but slowly
we will build this up and add new features. Let us know what you think and
if you have any ideas that might make it useful for you, we'd love to hear
them.

http://storybuilder.jumpstart.ge/en/

Eric
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