Storytelling tool Meograph introduces Facebook tagging

Multimedia storytelling platform Meograph has announced the introduction of Facebook friend tagging, with plans to shortly include Facebook pages and "custom-defined tags".

Meograph enables journalists to tell a story using multimedia, including the ability to link to content across the web and plot key events on a map.

The latest development means users "can add visual, clickable tags of Facebook friends", which chief executive Misha Leybovich told Journalism.co.uk would help deliver the "who" context of a story.

"Meograph has had the what, the how, the when, the where, the why but was missing the who", he said, adding this is a "critical part of the story".

The new Facebook integration means references to individuals in Meographs will be made "more interactive" and give viewers something "to follow up on". It "takes it to the next level", he said.

According to the release, once a Facebook friend has been tagged, they will be told on Facebook, along with a "Facebook wall post that links to the story, an image from the content, and a list of the other people tagged".

"Letting people know they are part of a story being told massively increases virality of the content," the release adds. "This is timely as the age-old art of true, lasting storytelling adapts to the digital, social era."

During the next month, Meograph will also introduce Facebook page tagging, which will enable users to tag companies and brands, based on their Facebook page, and custom-tagging is also planned as part of Meograph's paid-for service.

This will mean that news outlets after more of a customised experience, can set up tags which might, perhaps, link to a topic page they have on their own site for an individual or company.

"If they give us an avatar, name or url, that's enough for us to create a tag", Leybovich explained. He said that news outlets covering a trial, for example, might like to add custom tags to topics pages on key individuals, or stories about companies might light to relevant topic pages – and effectively send traffic to the news site.

Meograph is currently working on features aimed at "major news organisations", as part of its time at the Turner Media Camp, a start-up media incubator, this year. Meograph was chosen as one of five projects to take part in the "accelerator programme", as outlined in this announcement from June.

As part of the process Meograph gets investment and is able to "commercialise the business to Turner’s entertainment, news, sports and animation networks, as well as across other Time Warner companies".

The programme will "whip us into shape so we can make major media organisations our customers," Leybovish added, saying that the idea is to encourage both news outlets and their readers to build Meographs.

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