Newcomer Plotagon brings a new way to create video content for social media

In the latest weeks, a number of companies in the social media sphere have committed to video content as a key part of how people want to express themselves in the future. Facebook is reporting that the use of video in users newsfeed have quadrupled in the last year alone. The number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the US.

This rise in the use of video as a medium for social media expression has prompted many other companies to react as well.

According to a recent report by Business Insider, Social media influenced video has eclipsed non-social video on the Web in terms of audience size, and is poised to reach 1.5 billion users globally, according to Cisco.

In this new world of social mobile video, one aspect is often overlooked, and that is how to best create this viral content. Enter Plotagon, a Stockholm startup who recently secured $ 2,5M in funding to develop new opportunities.

Plotagon lets anyone create an animated video simply by writing a story. The application, which was a finalist in last years Innovation By Design Awards hosted by Fast Company, is extremely simple to use, something which its quickly growing user community can attest to.

It was originally meant to be the future of television, starring photorealistic human actors. During our beta phase, we moved in a new direction, making the application more accessible, both in terms of the design but most importantly in terms of which platforms could be used for creating films, says Philip Edner, CEO of Plotagon. Plotagon now has a library of environments and characters, as well as a character creator that will let the user create an animated version of themselves or any number of celebrities they can imagine. But what is most impressive is the fact that this application is available on any platform (Android 3Q 2015)

In essence, we have created Pixar in the palm of your hand, says Philip Edner. From an idea to a finished animation just as soon as you can write it, ready to share with the world through social media.

Plotagon, which is free-to-download for PC/Mac, Iphone and iPad, is a contender for the rapidly growing segment of social video creation. The user community of Plotagon shows an impressive diversity in terms of user age and geographical location.

People are joining the community of Plotagon from all over. ‘In the beginning, we believed that Plotagon would appeal to a certain age group. It is fascinating to see how wrong we were. Plotagons community brings together scriptwriters, comedians, storytellers of all ages into a really vibrant community with a warm and creative tone of voice’, says Klas Holmlund, Head of Community.

People use Plotagon for a birthday greeting, a training video for new employees, as a medium for homework assignment or to create whole series of drama, romance or suspense.

A turning point came when we released the Character Creator three months ago. It was amazing to see all the different users, whom we only knew as their aliases, reveal themselves and tell the world ‘here I am’, says Holmlund. It is really exciting to see something like this grow.

When Plotagon reaches it’s goal to become a new medium, the bridge between the written status update and the animated film, Plotagon has changed the industry. It is doubtless that this is one of the more innovative examples of how tomorrow's social video content will be created.