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Following the dispute between the Indian government and Twitter earlier this year, Twitter’s local rival Ku’s hopes have begun to shine as he refuses to remove a few tweets critical of Indian agricultural laws.
A number of Indian government ministers, including the Minister of Railways of India, who took to Twitter on February 9, were invited to their Twitter account. Connect with them on Co.. The app was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few months ago on a radio broadcast, but the company’s real growth came after tensions between New Delhi and Twitter escalated in February.
“The key ministers of the Indian government have joined the forum is the current microblog space. [Twitter] It does not comply with certain rules. They had to make sure there was another place to go to meet the citizens, ”said Coopera co-founder Apramia Radhachrishna. CASIA.
In February this year, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology announced new guidelines in accordance with IT Rules 2021. The rules are to hold social media companies accountable for the content posted on the platform. To that end, social media companies must appoint a night and day officer to solve government problems within 72 hours of the request. Twitter is suing an Indian court over its unconstitutional rules.
Twitter has been embroiled in a long-running war with the government, with local rivals Ku using his time to grow. In the two days since Ku first appeared on Twitter, he has recorded more than 3 million downloads.
Bird’s call
Radharisch is a series entrepreneur. The first was a taxi company called Taxi Fursur. A.D. In 2016, a year after selling the company to Ola for $ 200 million, it launched a peer-to-peer exchange app called Vocal. Like Quora, users post questions on the app and wait for others to respond. You can do this by writing or recording a voice message, and vocal users are welcome to do it in their own language; India has 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects. The idea of building Radharisch and Kun came to him when he measured vocals.
A.D. At the end of 2019, Radharisch and his entrepreneur Mayan Bidwakta began traveling to different states to talk to vocal users about what they wanted on social media. The goal was to build new features for vocals based on their interactions with users.
“During our visit to Luxon [a north Indian city]We asked people what they wanted. They did not know how to respond. But when we asked them who they were following, who they admired, or what news they needed, they came up with a lot of answers in 30 seconds. ” Said Radharishina.
I’m on Ku now.
Stay tuned to me for real-time, exciting and unique updates on this Indian micro-blog forum.
Let’s exchange our thoughts and ideas on Co.
📱 Join me at https://t.co/zIL6YI0epM pic.twitter.com/REGioTdMfm
– @PiyushGoyal February 9, 2021
Read this: WhatsApp and Twitter sue Indian government over new IT law
Then there was another set of users, who, instead of just posting questions on vocals, wanted to express themselves in their own language, follow people with similar interests, and most importantly, connect with people with the same language history.
“The users we talked to don’t use Twitter and haven’t even heard of it. They use Facebook, but mostly to connect with their old friends. What they were looking for was something that could connect them to new people online, based on some common ground. ”
The co-founders used the comments to create an example of Ku, which had some Twitter functionality but translated language options. Ku starts in March 2020 and has so far closed over 6 million downloads.
The look and feel of the app is similar to Twitter. Ku logo from Twitter Blue Larry T. A bird, on the other hand, is yellow, but it is a bird. The features are the same as on Twitter — post, follow and prepare personalized feeds. There are hashtags, preferences, verified users, and trending topics, all known to Twitter users.
“You can say that Facebook looks like Orkut and Ku looks like Twitter. The concept of social networks is, to some extent, limited to eating. We’ve made some changes, and instead of retweeting, we have the option to ‘ku’ again. We have no key to the heart, we have the key to love. There are only so many ways to design a social media app, ”said Radharishina.
Ku’s global expansion.
In addition to India’s handshake on Twitter, this year’s micro blogging forum continues to receive scrutiny from governments around the world, including Russia and Nigeria. Twitter is facing serious obstacles in other parts of the world, and Ku is looking to expand beyond India. Last week, after Nigeria banned Twitter indefinitely – the consequences of a series of events that led to the cancellation of Twitter by President Goodluck Jonathan – Radharisch and Ku continue in Nigeria. Within a week, the Nigerian government had an official account on Ku and it had more than 2,300 followers.
At a time when Facebook and Twitter seemed to dominate social media, Ku’s sudden rise attracted the support of Indian government officials – Indian and overseas VCCs.
Last month, three months after Tiger Global raised $ 4 million in February, it launched a $ 30 million series B round. “Tiger Global has been very strong in recent years in investing in India.
According to the founder, social media companies that are building forums in local languages will be the next big thing when many people in India are connected to the internet. Ku users can now browse the app and write posts in six different languages. “We want to build communities in every language. We see people discussing topics related to their communities in their own language. So hashtag trends are also available in local languages,” he said.
Radharisch said the company is still developing its products and gaining new users, so there is no rush to shape revenue streams. Once the company reaches 100 million downloads, it will start generating revenue. “We want to create something new on the topic of expressing our own language.
This article is part of KrASIA’s “Startup Stories” series, where KrASIA writers talk to the founders of technology companies in South and Southeast Asia.
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