How many times have you encountered a situation where you are looking for Quotes from famous people or everyday quotes etc. and when you eventually search on Google (or Search Engine of your choice), you are bombarded with tons of websites, you might find the Quote but it would again be from an un-trusted source. The information around contemporary quotes is completely scattered and this is the problem that Paris based startup Storyzy (a Trooclick brand) is trying to solve for Information hungry internet consumers !!!
Today we have a Q&A with Stanislas Motte, Co-founder & CEO of Storyzy. We discuss about various aspects of Storyzy, Importance of Content, Entrepreneurial culture in Paris and much more.
Can you give a small background about Storyzy and it’s founders ?
Storyzy is a Trooclick brand. Trooclick was founded in November 2012. The original goal of Trooclick’s founders was to create an automated fact-checking algorithm. The created and launched a plug-in that would fact check financial news articles, but the results were surprising – there were almost no voluntary errors. The team realized that, although errors are interesting, it’s omissions that are even more juicy. What people say, and what they don’t say, are quite revealing. So the team decided to make a pivot in late 2014 to the extraction of reported speech (quotes).
Trooclick was founded by a team of four. For, Stanislas Motte (CEO), Trooclick (Storyzy) is his second company. His first, Diora News, was one of the first news agencies that specialized in mobiles (in 1999). He sold DioraNews to Buongiorno, the world’s third multimedia mobile service company, owned by NTT DoCoMo. Pierre-Albert Ruquier (CMO) has 15 years experience in digital information and news distribution; he was also co-founder and associate CEO of Diora News. Arnaud Jacolin (CFO) is the former financial controller (French subsidiary) turned CFO of Buongiorno where he oversaw a more than $46 million growth in 2010. Ramón Ruti (CTO) contributed to the launch of iTouch Movilisto, a publisher of mobile content listed on the London stock exchange. In 2008, following the purchase of iTouch Movilisto by Buongiorno (bought out by NTT Docomo), he was given the direction of an international team of 15 engineers.
Can you explain about the features of Storyzy and how it can help content publishers with their content ?
Storyzy is the only systematic source for contemporary quotes. It searchable by keyword and topic and always provides source information for each quote (the article, or articles, where the quote can be found) and a date (publication date of article). There is no other quote database (that we know of) that specializes in the systematic indexation of contemporary quotes. For content marketers, Storyzy is helpful for content curation.
Currently, how many sites (approximately) does Storyzy index in order to extract the quotes from the articles ?
The Storyzy algorithm indexes more than 60 thousand publisher websites on a regular basis.
How does your back-end service ensure the genuineness and originality of the quote extracted from any particular website.
We have integrated a sort of automated editorialization into the Storyzy algorithm, which is divided into essentially 3 parts. The first part is all about grammar : The algorithm discards any speeches (quotes) that are not syntactically correct. With the well-formed speeches, two things happen. On the one hand, the speeches are giving an “interest” score. To this the algorithm identifies instances of subjectivity, informativity, comparison, forecasting, etc… the presence of these elements in a speech gives the speech points. This point system allows the algorithm to essentially “rank” quotes based upon a set of assumptions – it can raise to most interesting quotes to the top of a list.
On the other hand, the algorithm is capable of categorizing a speech as being either subjective or objective. In other words: is the speech primarily informative (i.e. “The sky is blue”)? Or is the speech more opinionated (i.e. “I think the sky is beautiful”)? Using the “interesting quotes” points system and the subjective/objective categorization, the Storyzy algorithm is able to highlight the most original and interesting quotes out of a large group.
When it comes to the genuineness of a quote – whether it is correctly attributed to the correct person – our system is only as accurate as the journalists who write the articles from whence the quotes are extracted. Every ounce of information found on Storyzy is extracted from the context of news articles. We are not in the business of fact checking [not anymore], our job is simply to generate structured news data directly from the text of news articles, and to compile data into a user-friendly interface.
Twitter has changed the way news/information is consumed, how exactly is Storyzy different from services like Twitter
Storyzy’s approach to news is unique because it is quote-focused. There are dozens of websites where you can go find motivation or inspirational quotes. The difference between Storyzy and these types of websites is that Storyzy is focused on the the quotes of today. On Storyzy, every quote comes with a date (publication date of associated article) and also with a source (or sometimes many sources) – two things that you don’t find on your typical “find a quote” website. This is important because it allows users to find contemporary brand-relevant quotes to curate and promote their brand message. We like to think of it as a new spin on reactive marketing : Inserting your brand into the buzzing conversational topics of the day [on social media, in the news, or elsewhere].
Can you touch base on the StoryzyAPI [it’s Usage, Pricing, etc.] which can be used by 3rd party dev’s, organizations, bloggers etc.
The Storyzy API has essentially 2 functionalities. The first gives users access to all of Storyzy’s data : quotes, people [plus their affiliation and photo when available], organizations and more. Users can recuperate information from the database via a keyword search or they can recuperate a 24 hour news cycle all in one go. The second gives users access to Storyzy’s engine : they can input news articles [one or more at a time, in almost any format: raw, binary, or a url] and the engine will extract and consolidate, all the news data from each article. The API is available on Mashape under a tiered pricing plan. User can make a small number of calls for free each month, the price goes up by a function of usage and difference endpoints have a different weight (in terms of pricing), due to the fact that the amount of data they deliver varies significantly. Storyzy is open to discuss pricing solutions and can be contacted at api@trooclick.com
Can you explain the revenue model of Storyzy ?
Storyzy’s revenue model is freemium. In 2016, use of the Storyzy interface [and all associated features and functionalities] will be free and use of the Storyzy API is paid. In 2017, premium features and functionalities will be added to the Storyzy interface, possible examples include: historical information, analytics and data visualizations, customized image and video creation, etc… These ideas are all presently being tested with our early adopters.
Can you touch upon Storyzy’s association with GEN Summit that is scheduled for June 2016
To give you some background, the Global Editors’ Network is a cross platform community of editors, committed to sustainable, high-quality journalism. We are delighted to be working in partnership with the organization at this year’s summit, which will bring together the trends set to define journalism in the year to come. We will also be exhibiting beside a number of industry leaders, including Google, the Knight Foundation, Russia Today and many others.
Is Storyzy/Trooclick bootstrapped or funded (angel/VC funded) startup ?
Storyzy [Trooclick] is not yet venture-backed, but does have the financial support of the three French banks. Trooclick’s founders personally invested $1 million in the company since its founding.
What are your thoughts on the way Digital Media is consumed [and future of Digital Media]
At Storyzy, we think it’s clear that it’s important for media companies and publishers to “go with the flow”. Things are changing, new social platforms, new content formats, new everything – every few months. The media companies that survive and flourish will be those that are willing to adapt their methodologies quickly to changing consumer habits. The companies that fail will be those that cling to the past.
Importance of Video in Marketing & Digital Media Consumption
The importance of video marketing cannot be overstated. We have a instagram account. An average photo post gets about 40 likes. The average video post get more than 1000 views and hundreds of likes. Need we say more.
Some thoughts about the startup eco-system in Paris ?
The startup ecosystem is Paris is great. The number of startups in the neighbourhood has grown tremendously in recent years. For example, Storyzy’s office is located in one of the many, brand new startup incubators in Paris. We share the building with probably close to 50 other startup companies.
Some marketing tips for startups ?
Curate news quotes of course! 😉 But quite frankly… curation [either on a blog and/or social media sites] is an excellent solution for the time-poor start-up. We all know that content marketing works – but content creation is usually a large investment. Content curation is a great compromise. In fact, we have written a post about it and you can Marketing Tips for Startups Our golden rule: Think hard about your target audience. What matters to them ? What would be useful to them ? That’s what you should curate and create.
If you have any questions for the Storyzy team, please leave a comment or email your request to himanshu.sheth@gmail.com