While it’s wonderful that the term “storytelling” has enjoyed a surge in popularity recently, it’s also led to many start-ups who throw the buzzword around like cheap candies at the circus. I’m not saying that @authorbee is one of those companies. In fact, the idea of building a crowd-sourced storytelling platform that leverages Twitter could be fantastic. If they can combine the individual’s urge to tell stories with a collective urge, then who knows what could happen?

But take it with a grain of salt. One of the lessons we’ve learned over the last twenty years is that the online connective tissue needs time to form. While the idea of hive-storytelling or collective tales or crowdsourced stories (etc.) is growing, there isn’t much evidence that it can go large.

Authorbee says this of their product:

@AuthorBee is a Twitter-integrated implementation of the AuthorBee platform designed to optimize the user experience for Twitter users. The patent-pending multi-path story creation and collaboration engine creates a highly personalized user experience where users define, manage and share their own favorite storylines for every story.

How does it work?

@AuthorBee enables anyone to combine Tweets with their Twitter followers to build longer form stories 140 characters at a time. Stories can be viewed and explored in a beautifully readable format as they take shape on the user’s very own personalized @AuthorBee channel. Favorite storylines personalized to each user can be shared and published.

The possibilities are endless.

So the promise of seeing your story, or a story you’ve contributed to, presented beautifully is the driving force behind the product. If they can slickly package our collaboration then they’re betting some great stories will be told. They may be right. Beautiful packaging, and intuitive tools are the linchpins of a mature product. But even assuming they have that covered, is the audience there to help them build their storytelling platform?

I’m headed over to @authorbee on Twitter to give it a shot with one of my own creations. I’ll report back on my experience.

Have any of you tried the service out yet?