In a post on LinkedIn, co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka announced that the platform will be discontinuing its services to the public, as talks for a partnership with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses did not yield the desired outcomes.
Koo -- the made-in-India rival of Twitter -- will not charge users for a verification badge, its co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said as he took on the larger rival for allegedly first creating bots and now charging users for verification. Koo, which allows users to express views in Indian languages, has already crossed 50 million downloads and is now flying into the rival's nest, starting a campaign on Twitter by making itself prominently visible on verified handles and offering them better deals on its platform at no cost. Since taking over Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk has set in motion massive changes, sacking employees and talking of levying a $8 charge for 'verified' handles.
Whether in cricket or business, Kohli continues to play the long game.
The Twitter handle @kooeminence was suspended on Friday, a development that came in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk-owned Twitter suspending the accounts of several prominent global journalists, including those from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post.
Koo has so far raised $4.1 mn in Series A funding from existing investors Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and 3one4 Capital.
Koo, which works on similar lines as Twitter, was born with a focus on regional language, unlike Twitter and Facebook, which are very popular but primarily cater to an English-speaking audience, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Tiger Global-backed Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, has laid off 30 per cent of its workforce of 260 employees in the last year as the budding firm, like many other start-ups in the country, battles global headwinds. "It's important for businesses of all sizes to adopt efficient and conservative approaches to see this period through. "In line with this, we have acted on some role redundancies by letting go of 30 per cent of our workforce over the course of the year," said a Koo spokesperson.
French security researcher Robert Baptiste posted a screenshot suggesting the micro-blogging platform that offers a Twitter-like experience in Indian languages had Chinese connections.
The Chinese investor in the parent firm of Koo, India's answer to Twitter, is on its way out after other investors have pledged to buy out its 9 per cent stake, Koo's co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said.
Jorhat has many attraction to offer for the discerning and offbeat traveller.
She was in Singapore to accept the TIME 100 Award, which 'recognises global leaders who have gone above and beyond to move their industries -- and the world -- forward'.
Indian shoppers accounted for 13 per cent of the total hours spent by mobile users across the globe on their shopping apps in 2023, next only to China in this regard. According to the "State of Mobile -2024" report released a few days ago by data.ai (previously known as App Annie), which looks into various segments of the app economy across the world, in the last calendar year, users in India collectively spent 12.84 billion hours on shopping apps. This represents an increase of over 73 per cent from the time they spent in 2020 and of more than 3.5 per cent over 2022.
Although the BJP has never been ballistic about the BJD and Narendra Modi has avoided being critical of Naveen Patnaik, the BJP is optimistic that the party can improve its electoral fortunes in Odisha on its own, notes Rup Narayan Das.
Sindhu, Lakshya win openers; Sai Praneeth loses in US Open
Kiran George wins Indonesia Masters to grab second super 100 title
Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) law aims to protect the privacy of Indian citizens while proposing a penalty of up to Rs 250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect digital data of individuals.
Indian shuttler Kiran George says his giant-killing act at the Thailand Open Super 500 tournament earlier this year gave him the self-belief, which proved to be the key en route his second BWF title at the Indonesia Masters.
The former Pakistan spinner has also come out in support of Deepak Hooda, who has not been included in the playing XI, despite being in top form in the white-ball setup.
Hardik recently led his IPL franchise Gujarat Titans to title win in their debut season
The government wants a collaborative model with a public-private partnership to fact-check social media content.
Jhulan inspired many women to take up sport, says Virat Kohli
Former India opener Wasim Jaffer believes Tom Latham will be the key batter for New Zealand in the ongoing first Test match in Kanpur on Thursday.
'The Indian govt's initiatives on EVs are very strong and customers want to buy EVs. This will make the country's conversion to EVs faster than other markets, and I hope even faster than the US'
The company will showcase the Ioniq electric vehicle at the Auto Expo that begins next week.
"They are likely to intimate date and time soon. Delay attributed to bad weather conditions on their side," Rijiju wrote on Twitter.
Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik on Saturday claimed that some unidentified persons tried to conduct a recce of his residence in Mumbai and also tried to gather information about himself and his family members.
Twitter received 94 grievances and 'actioned' 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25, the microblogging platform said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.
Media company New Delhi Television (NDTV) recorded its highest-ever consolidated profit at the group level in over a decade for financial year 2021-22 (FY22), said co-chairpersons Radhika Roy and Prannoy Roy in the firm's latest annual report. Addressing shareholders, the Roys, founder-promoters of NDTV, said the company had emerged financially strong in FY22, continuing the turnaround of recent years. "Both the television and digital branches of the NDTV group reported their highest-ever profit. NDTV Ltd (television arm) recorded a profit of Rs 59.18 crore.
Established in 1977, The Hindu Temple Society of North America Sri Maha Vallabha Ganapati Devasthanam, popularly known as the Ganesh temple, is regarded as the first and oldest Hindu temple in North America.
'The semiconductor supply is constantly improving, with visible green-shoots in the situation as compared to earlier part of last year'
Last week, Twitter had blocked Union Information and Technology Minister Prasad from accessing his account which ratcheted up tensions with the government as it came under renewed attack for not following local laws.
"Ordinary users of WhatsApp have nothing to fear about the new Rules. Its entire objective is to find out who started the message that led to commissioning of specific crimes mentioned in the rules," Prasad added.
Lineup includes a family compact car, hybrid, SUV and others.
As Ashwin will now be sharing the dressing room with Buttler, Twitter enjoyed a field day.
Twitter on Wednesday said it has suspended over 500 accounts, and blocked access to several others within India as it partly acceded to a government order to curb spread of misinformation and inflammatory content around farmers' protests.
The comments assume significance as social media companies are facing the deadline of May 25 to comply with the new guidelines for digital platforms.
The sources said Twitter has not sent details of Chief Compliance Officer to the ministry and only shared details of a lawyer working in a law firm in India as their Nodal Contact Person and Grievance Officer.
Religious nurses, ex-cops, dedicated lawyers share a common purpose -- justice goals are served on OTT this week. Sukanya Verma gives you your OTT fix of the week.
The car is expected to hit the road on October 23 and is being launched as Hyundai celebrates two decades in the country. Industry sources say that it will be priced at Rs 3,70,000 to stay competitive with its biggest competitors, Tata Tiago and Maruti Suzuki Celerio.
The researchers noted that people who are fully vaccinated can still become infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can carry a viral load similar to those who are unvaccinated.
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