Denmark Startup: Story Planet Wants To Become A Global Story Telling Platform

StoryPlanet,Denmark startup,Danish startup,startup,startups,startup interviewAt this day and age there are several different platforms to get your own content out to the internet. There are social media outlets like Twitter, that allow you to post short form content. There are places like Facebook which allow you to share longer, more intimate content. There are self blogging platforms like Tumblr. And, for those who like to write a lot on a specific topic there are full form blog platforms like Blogger and Word Press.

A new Denmark startup called Story Planet, is hoping to become a global platform for story tellers to mesh all of their media together and tell their story. From what we can tell Story Planet rests somewhere between Tumblr and Blogger/Word Press. It’s going to be the perfect place to have longer, more media rich blog or content offerings without the formality often associated with a Blogger or Word Press blog.

Story Planet is taking their idea to become a global story telling platform seriously, they already have a team presence in Copenhagen, Singapore, Brighton, and New York City. This gives them an accurate pulse of several startup areas and a way to push their product out on not just multiple countries, but multiple continents.

We got a chance to talk Bjarke Myrthu co-founder of Story Planet. Check out the interview below.

What is Story Planet?

We make it easy for anyone to publish a new kind of interactive stories blending photos, video text and graphics. We also let developers build services on top of our platform.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

-Bjarke Myrthu (CEO): Award winning interactive documentary member, co-founder of Magnuminmotion.com and former executive editor at Magnum Photos. Jury member at World Press Photo.

-Pete Barr-Watson (CTO): Part of the executive team of the Microsoft Silverlight product, founder of one of UK’s first Flash Agencies, co-author of New Masters of Flash, jury member at Ars Electronica.

-Joichi Ito: Director of MIT Media Lab. Chairman of Creative Commons, board of Mozilla etc. Investor in Twitter, Last FM, Movable Type etc.

-Mohamed Nanabhay: Former director of Al Jazeera English, board of Global Voices etc.

Where are you based?

We are a virtual organization with team members in NYC, Brighton, Singapore and Copenhagen.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

The best startup culture is still in the US and UK, but we are tapping in to the design culture of Copenhagen and the work ethic of Singapore. I think the rest of the world have a lot to learn about creating services for general consumers – we tend to thing too small and too nerdy when it’s outside the US. On the other hand the US does not always have a sensitivity about making stuff work for the rest of the world…they often don’t really have to because their home market is so big.

What problem does your startup solve?

If you have a bunch of photos, video and texts that you would like to turn into a rich media experience – basically the kind of stuff you used to be able to do in Flash – you need to know a lot about coding. Creating a Youtube video or doing a Tumblr blog won’t really do the job.

Having said that we are not as much about solving an existing problem as creating a new category of online content. Before Blogger and WordPress did you know it was a problem that you couldn’t do a blog? – I think the vast majority of people only discovered they had a need for a blog later.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Our minimum viable product is quite large. We are not building a feature on an app, but a platform to drive an ecosystem of developers and storytellers. So getting launched with a feasible first version needed a lot of creative bootstrapping.

Who are your mentors and role models?

We have pretty good internal mentoring from Joi and Mohamed. And we are inspired by a variety of people who were able to make a dent in the universe by inventing great things. But I think we are kind of against the idea leaning too much on one person as a mentor or role model. It’s more about listening a lot to our user community and try to get inspiration from the feedback they give us.

Whats one thing the world doesn’t know about you or your startup?

We haven’t really started rolling out our developer stack yet, but we actually have a bunch of API’s that you can use if you get in touch with us.

What’s next for Story Planet?

We are working hard on getting on mobile with HTML5 and native apps for iPad. Our content is really well suited for pads, so it’s kind of ironic that we are in Flash – but it was way the fastest and most stable way to build our beta.

Linkage:

Check out Story Planet Here

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