About
Built from the work itself
Signal began as Storytime’s internal tool for organizing Instagram mentions we were otherwise losing.
Origin
A notifications tab is not a workflow
Storytime is a New York brand. Instagram tags arrived in photos, captions, comments and Stories, but the useful context was scattered across notifications and messages.
We needed one place to review mentions, answer DMs before the reply window closed, record permission for posts we wanted to reuse and report on the result.
Signal ran as our internal workspace before it had a public site. Details such as the reply-window status and labeled estimates come from that daily work.
Principles
How we build Signal
Say what is true
Signal shows how long you have to reply, and says when a figure is missing rather than drawing a zero.
Label every estimate
Estimated figures name their method. Missing data says “Not shared by Instagram yet,” not zero.
Make export straightforward
Workspace export and CSV downloads keep your records available outside Signal.
Request only needed access
Signal asks for the access a feature needs and no more, and says how each account is secured.