Zeen isn’t a brand new tool, it’s been around for about a year. But I just found it today and with it snowing, it seemed like a good time to play. It’s simple to create a stream of content that can be broken down into individual pages, mimicking magazine style pages.
Take a look at my sample Zeen to find out more! Or read on.
Zeens can contain:
- Photos – add individual photos or create galleries. Photos can be uploaded from your flikr, picasa and instagram accounts. There’s also a search option that pulls from Google image search. You’ll have to go look at my sample zeen to see why I don’t like that idea.
- Text – Â includes a variety of font and styling options.
- Videos – very easy to embed a YouTube video
- and more.
This feels much more like a creative tool than a curation tool. Sure, you can add links to other content, photos, etc. and it could be called curation. But the way it’s set up is much more a blank slate that encourages you to think a bit more about what you’re adding and why. The individual bits of content you add aren’t meant to stand on their own, but to be used to create a story.
Zeen would be a wonderful platform for student presentations & reports. Or for a personal portfolio. Organizations and classrooms could use it for publicity and reports.
The only problem I have with it (other than the way Google Image Search is implemented) is the embedding options. It only offers iframe embedding options at this point. I wish there were some other options to give it wider embeddability.
