Storify acquired by Livefyre

Social media curation tool Storify has been acquired by real-time conversation platform Livefyre. Storify’s free product will not be changed but its paid tiers will be merged into a single offering.

Storify will also be integrated into Livefyre’s StreamHub to offer a product for brands and agencies that allows a greater control over content curation and social storytelling.

According to the release, Storify is used by over 850,000 marketers and journalists at more than 400 global brands and publishers. Livefyre also serves over 400 publishers, media companies and brands with its network receiving in excess of 1 billion page views per month.

Journalism.co.uk’s Sarah Marshall highlights Storify’s popularity with journalists, who use it to tell stories with the help of tweets, YouTube videos and Instagram images. The companies seem more focused on the commercial side of the acquisition; Storify’s release claims that by joining Livefyre it is becoming part of a larger company with, ‘more resources, a strong technical infrastructure and experienced enterprise sales team’.  

Monetising traditionally free web products is a problem faced by publishers and tech start-ups everywhere. Even major players like Facebook have only recently found ways to increase revenue streams. This acquisition sees a popular free tool combined with a tech company who knows how to make money on the internet. The Next Web reports that Livefyre’s Jordan Kretchmer wants the company to be the first social media conversation platform to file for an IPO.

In the short term this move will mean very little for either product’s users, as changes tend to be rolled out over several months. The technical support and resources offered by Livefyre won’t hurt the development of Storify’s free tool and, as long it remains a free tool, the move is surely a positive for brands, agencies, journalists and publishers.

Do you use Storify? What do you think of this acquisition? Let us know in the comments below.