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New Delhi, Dec 5 () Social media platform Sharechat on Thursday said content from its platform has been shared 14 billion times on mobile messaging application WhatsApp so far this year.
 The platform observed that 23 per cent users created entertainment-related content on its platform while engagement on romantic content was around 14 per cent.
 "450 million UGC (user generated content) posted/ created on ShareChat, in formats spanning images, videos, GIFs, etc, with over 580 million hours of video played on the platform which got more than 14 billion WhatsApp shares this year," the company said in a Sharechat 2019 Trendz report.
 The social media platform observed that users in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan engage with devotional content in the morning and turn to romantic content in the evening.
 "The last five years have been a great learning experience and we have grown from zero to 60 million monthly active users, mostly organic way as we truly understand the heart and pulse of every native language user and connect well through our platform," Sharechat Chief Business Officer Sunil Kamath said.
 The platform also saw surge in nationalism moments on the platform at the time of Pulwama attack, return of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman and general elections.
 "Hindi led the user generated content creation with 22.5 per cent followed by Tamil with 19.4 per cent. Teleugu and Punjabi were at the third spot with more than 13 per cent share each," the report said.
 The social media platforms claims to over 60 million user which includes 21 million content creators on its platform. PRS HRS

Sharechat says its content shared 14 billion times on WhatsApp

<ul><li>The combined short video platform will have over 300M MAUs and 100M strong creator community.</li><li><keyword id="11984975" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="mx-media" source="Orion">MX Media</keyword> and its shareholders will become strategic shareholders of <keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword>.</li></ul>MX Media Co. Ltd, the parent company of <keyword id="9555198" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="mx-takatak" source="Orion">MX TakaTak</keyword>, and ShareChat, the parent company of <keyword id="8678883" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="moj" source="Orion">Moj</keyword>, today announced a strategic merger between Moj and MX <keyword id="7638068" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="takatak" source="Orion">TakaTak</keyword>, to create the largest short video platform for Indians, whereby the two platforms will now be controlled by ShareChat. The combined platform will have 100 million creators, over 300 million Monthly Active Users (MAU), and nearly 250 billion monthly video views. Post this transaction, MX Media and its shareholders will become strategic shareholders of ShareChat. Since its launch in July 2020, Moj has emerged as the largest Indian short video app, with over 160 million MAUs and over 50 million creator communities in the 15 Indian languages. The company has been investing heavily in social and live commerce and growing its AI/ML team which is now over 100 people strong and spread across the US, Europe, and India. MX TakaTak was launched in July 2020 and reached 150 million MAUs, across 10 languages. The platform’s deep access to content talent and understanding of the MX Media ecosystem user base has seen this high growth in a short span of time. MX TakaTak will continue to function as a separate platform for now, but the two platforms’ creator base, content supply and recommendation algorithms will be integrated. In the coming months, the experience of users and creators will converge enabling creators from both platforms to reach the most extensive set of audiences in India. This will provide users access to unique features including best-in-class camera creation tools with Snap filters, live commerce, and a vast music library. Commenting on the merger, Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Cofounder, ShareChat &amp; Moj, said, “We at ShareChat are building India’s largest content ecosystem which has been on an unprecedented growth trajectory. MX TakaTak is a popular platform and this merger further solidifies our position in the short video ecosystem. With this development, we aim to build the largest original content platform on Moj along with the largest community of users across India.” Commenting on the partnership, Karan Bedi, CEO MX Media said, “I am excited to announce the strategic merger of India’s two most popular social media platforms. As India's largest digital entertainment platform, MX has always strived to build superior world class products, and TakaTak is no exception. This combined with Moj’s AI and execution capabilities makes the combined business a truly world class short video platform. MX has created two ‘unicorns’ within one business, unlocking significant value for our shareholders, and will now continue to double down on OTT, with significantly increased financial resources.”

ShareChat and MX Media announce a strategic merger of Moj and MX TakaTak

<ul><li>India’s home-grown social network ShareChat is looking for its next round of investment, and Google may reportedly shell out $150 million to $200 million. </li><li>Even <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> has expressed its interest in ShareChat while chasing <keyword id="6762469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="TikTok">TikTok</keyword>’s operations in the US. </li><li>Here’s why analysts think it makes sense that Google is looking to ShareChat in order to fill the gaps in its portfolio. </li></ul>Global tech giants are on the hunt for the next big social network. Facebook has rolled out Instagram Reels and Microsoft is looking to get its hands on the real deal by acquiring TikTok’s US business. Meanwhile, in India, Google is trying to finally get a piece of pie by investing in the country’s home-grown social networking platform, ShareChat. Neither Google nor ShareChat have commented on the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/google-in-talks-with-sharechat-as-latter-scouts-for-150-200-million/articleshow/77582440.cms">Economic Times</a> article, which claims that the companies are in the preliminary stages of negotiating an investment between $150 to $200 million. Nonetheless, analysts believe that Google’s interest in the local-language network will fill in the missing pieces it has in its portfolio. “It’s very well possible that ShareChat will eventually get rebranded as something else for global markets,” founder and CEO of Greyhound Research, Sanchit Vir Gogia told Business Insider. What is ShareChat? ShareChat is a social networking platform, which, within itself, has a TikTok alternative — called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/sharechats-tiktok-rival-moj-crosses-5mn-downloads-on-google-play/articleshow/76811384.cms">Moj</a> — that has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/sharechat-rides-on-the-ban-on-apps-from-china-with-15-million-downloads-in-36-hours-but-is-itself-backed-by-chinese-investors/articleshow/76728139.cms">gained traction</a> since the ban on Chinese apps was announced in India. “This will enable Google to have a shot at its social networking ambitions but as of now, we see it as a strategic investment if it happens,” said counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="77062280" title="Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Sharechat see substantial increase in time-spent after the ban on Chinese apps: Kantar" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div> The investment would not just give Google an opportunity to make headway in the social networking game, but also allow it to leverage ShareChat’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/users-created-over-100-mn-pieces-of-hindi-content-in-2019-sharechat/articleshow/72965102.cms">vernacular content</a>. It already lost out to Facebook in the west. ShareChat could provide the tech company its second coming. The Indian social network is currently the fastest growing local language social media platform in India with support for 14 Indian languages and more than 60 million active users. It’s one of the reasons that even Microsoft is <a href="https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/microsoft-in-prelim-talks-with-sharechat-indian-app-for-100-million-dollars-investment/story/412337.html">reportedly</a> looking to buy it even though it already has a monopoly in the professional networking space with LinkedIn. For ShareChat, an investment from Google would mean an investment by the ‘king of search engine optimisation’ (SEO), he explained. Brands pump in money where searchability is best — the more searchable a platform’s content is, the more likely it is to go viral. TikTok set the tone for social networks to travel from East to West The success of TikTok is only one case study on how the next big global social network won’t start out in the US or Europe but in Asia. But an app that’s popular in India will have a lot of users while being unable to general a lot of money. Indian users are diverse but they don’t like to spend online. “India is not a very high revenue market right now but it is a great testbed market from features, functionality and languages perspective,” said Gogia. Even with TikTok, one-third of its users were from India but the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/tiktok-made-more-money-than-any-other-app-in-july-despite-losing-its-largest-overseas-market/articleshow/77369131.cms">majority of its revenue was still from China.</a> Test local, make money global Many companies like Microsoft and Google already test drive their products in India and other countries before taking them to the US. According to Gogia, Google’s interest in ShareChat could very well be an attempt to drive innovation from a low-risk country and take it across broader global networks. If you look at it from Google’s point of view, it will be able to use the abundance of data to train its algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) models in a very big way. “These models can then be taken into other countries from a monetisation perspective,” explained Gogia. Investing in ShareChat fits in perfectly with Google wanting a piece of the pie in India’s rising digital adoption. “This will give them rich insights on how the next half a billion first time internet users will embrace the internet and help in tweaking their services accordingly and not to forget the indirect benefits to their core advertisement segment,” said Pathak. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/the-heat-is-on-mark-zuckerberg-in-india-as-facebook-and-whatsapp-incur-the-ire-of-modis-rivals/articleshow/77575358.cms">The heat is on Mark Zuckerberg in India as Facebook and WhatsApp incur the ire of Modi's rivals</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/not-only-gmail-google-drive-meet-slides-docs-sites-groups-chat-keep-voice-services-also-facing-issue-as-per-google/articleshow/77652103.cms">Google Drive, Docs, Meet and others are working again after being out of service for over six hours</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/microsoft-is-ending-support-for-the-legacy-internet-explorer-but-its-only-going-to-affect-less-than-5-of-online-users/articleshow/77607727.cms">Microsoft is ending support for the legacy Internet Explorer — but it's only going to affect less than 5% of online users</a>

Google eyes India’s ShareChat as Microsoft goes after TikTok in the US — here’s why it makes sense

<ul><li>ShareChat has raised a total of $224 million, with the latest Series D funding of $100 million from Twitter</li><li>The platform is now looking at starting its monetization journey and is reaching out to brands that could advertise on its platform</li><li>The platform’s aim is to get every Indian on to the internet, to a social network of its choice where they can converse in a language they are comfortable in</li></ul>It’s been four years since ShareChat, India’s homegrown regional social networking platform came into being. The platform came into the limelight after it raised $100 million funding in Series-D from Twitter, bringing the total raised in funding to $224 million. The company that was founded in 2015 by CEO Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan, currently has a strong user base of 60 million. It hasn’t been making any money till now, because according to Sunil Kamat, Chief Business Officer, ShareChat, the platform was in the growth-hack mode. As the platform is now starting its monetization journey, it is not only reaching out to brands to partner with them but also planning a major hiring spree. It plans to expand its team from its current strength of 250 to 400 within the next three to four months. While they haven’t put a target figure to where they want to be in the next few years, Kamath shares that for them, the priority is to get more and more people onto the internet and present them with a platform where they are comfortable conversing and sharing their opinions. Edited excerpts: Q) It’s been four years since ShareChat started its journey. How has it been so far? We came into being four years ago, before the data revolution happened. Our journey has been pretty impactful till now. Our co-founders saw a gap in the social media landscape early on and saw a large opportunity for a regional social platform, and that’s where it all began. It's good to be early in the space and we are glad to be at the forefront of change because a lot of people are now trying to mimic our platform. It's a good feeling. Q) How big is the team right now, and how do you plan to scale it up? We will be hiring a lot of talent for the company across various units. Our strength is currently at 250, which we plan to scale up to 400 in the next four months. Q) You say you aren’t chasing targets right now. What are you in it for then? One thing that India has been missing is the ability to get everybody on board. For us, it’s about getting every Indian user to be on a social network of his choice and to make him comfortable with his language. What motivates us is the thought of bringing every Indian user to the Internet and thereby help improve his quality of life over a period of time. Q) What has your revenue model been so far? Our revenue model will be ad-based. Till now, we have been completely focused on growth. However, we are not in this for the short-tem. Our aim is to become one of the largest social networks in India, which means we will be heavily acquisition-based. Now that we have acquired users, it's good to open up to partners, to reach the audience. It's good for our audience too, as they have brands coming on board that they can interact with brands. We will end up building our own journey because it's always been that way for us. We never had parallel system to look up to. But people tend to replicate ShareChat’s journey which is overwhelming. Q) While you’ve been in existence for four years, you haven’t spoken about the platform too much. How have you been reaching out to your audience? Our audience belongs to the Tier II, III and IV markets, so we come up with a lot of regional communication. It's about who you want to communicate to. If I wanted to attract the investor community, I would talk to the mainline media. We are doing a lot of work in the regional side; we work with a network where we get access to regional print, television. However, now that we are starting to monetize the platform, you will see a lot more of us. We were in this growth hack mode all these years and didn’t have too much to talk about. We were just putting our heads together, getting the product fitment right, the initial engagement metrics in place and then scaling up with the acquisition of consumers and audience retention. That journey continues. Now we are aiming at accelerating the reach for the platform, getting people to know about ShareChat and build monetization opportunities for the platform, to see how we can get brands to engage with audiences because it’s a fairly new audience for them as well. Q) You have seen good growth in terms of your consumer base. What have you done right? As a platform, we are very data and insights driven. Since we are a User Generated Content platform, our consumers create content for other users to consume. So, a lot of our learning comes from our users. We see people behaving in a certain manner and modify our platform according to the needs of our consumers. We have a comment section on the platform where we observed people started asking for each other’s numbers and other details. Seeing this, we enabled a chat feature. We also observe the kind of content people are consuming on the platform. Sometimes, a nicely edited content might necessarily not do as well as another piece of normal content that people connect better with. So, these are the insights which we pick up. We unlearn and learn again and that's what keeps us going. Q) Going ahead, what will be your marketing strategy? A lot of our marketing will be focused on driving engagement for consumer on content. We will focus on encouraging consumers to use our camera feature. On the other side, we want to build monetization through brands and marketing channels. Q) Have you seen a lot of interest from marketers? We are still at a very early stage because we are just starting that journey now. I have met top FMCG brands and had amazing conversations. They are the ones who are giving us ideas about how they can use the platform. This is probably the first time that brands will have the ability to put up ads in 14-15 languages on a single platform. It's a challenge and an opportunity at the same time because I don't think digital agencies are equipped to run campaigns in more than a few languages. Q) Are you planning to expand to more languages? As a country, we have 22 official languages. We would love to evaluate a language on the basis of what it brings to the table, whether there’s a significant upside of that language. We have also done dialects like Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri because we are a very visual platform in terms of content. We recently brought in Urdu too. We are currently building a team of people who would be well-versed in these languages too, to be able to help consumers. We have teams for various languages and each of them has learning of their own language. What works in 'A' might not work in 'B' but could work in 'C'. So, they work independently, but there is a lot of common understanding of engaging content. Q) With this new round of funding coming in, what will your key focus areas be? The new round of funding hasn’t changed things much at our end. It's more of a financial transaction at this stage but with every round you raise, you become more responsible, towards your shareholders, and investors. So, we really have to make sure that we have very good stories.

ShareChat is growing its team from 250 to 400 as it moves to monetize its 60 million user base

Mohalla Tech, the parent company of homegrown social media apps <keyword id="8678883" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moj" source="Orion">Moj</keyword> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/media/article/bharat-users-are-as-affluent-and-digitally-savvy-as-india-users-sharechat-and-groupm-report/articleshow/89154657.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">ShareChat</a>, is acquiring Times Internet-owned short-video platform <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/india-predicted-to-have-650-million-short-form-video-users-by-2025/articleshow/86792986.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">MX TakaTak</a> for nearly $600 million (about Rs 4,500 crore), sources said here on Thursday. In 2021, Mohalla Tech cumulatively raised $913 million, at a valuation of $3.7 billion. The acquisition, sources close to the development told IANS, will further bolster <keyword id="3358959" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sharechat" source="Orion">ShareChat</keyword>'s short-video market share through the platform Moj. When contacted, the companies declined to immediately comment on the development. Moj and ShareChat together have a 340 million-strong user community, while <keyword id="9555198" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mx-takatak" source="Orion">MX TakaTak</keyword> has nearly 150 million monthly active users (MAUs). Founded in 2015, Mohalla Tech has raised over $1.177 billion across eight fundraising rounds to date. Moj currently has an average user time spent of 34 minutes every day, scoring over 4.5 billion views daily. ShareChat is positioned uniquely with an average user time spent of 31 minutes daily. Since January this year, the company has grown to over 2,000 employees and added several new features as it focuses on building its products to be the leader in the Indian short video and social media space. In December, Mohalla Tech raised $266 million as part of its Series G round. "Both our products (Moj and ShareChat) have been leading the market with the highest monthly active user base, a very active creator set and amazing new partnerships to delight our community. This fresh funding will further strengthen our position," said Ankush Sachdeva, CEO and Co-founder, Moj and ShareChat. After the ban on TikTok and other Chinese short-video making apps, the advertisement revenue from Indian short-form space has been growing at a rapid pace and tripled in just six months. According to a latest report by homegrown consulting firm RedSeer Consulting, short-form content has grown 1.37 times in terms of monthly active user (MAU) and 1.1 times in terms of daily active users from June 2020 when Chinese app TikTok was banned in India. The monthly active users of the short-form segment in the country are expected to grow more than two times to reach 650 million users by 2025, clocking the second spot after television. This significant growth is largely expected to be driven by the new 300 million Internet users that will be added by 2025. "Both Josh and Moj apps have seen a good jump in user and creator net promoter score (NPS) largely driven by users seeing more personalisation, fresher and more filtered content, and creators having access to new tools, increased reach and more collaboration opportunities," said the report.

ShareChat to acquire short video platform MX TakaTak for around ₹4,500 crore

Homegrown regional language social media platform <keyword id="3358959" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ShareChat">ShareChat</keyword> on Monday said that it has fully migrated its infrastructure to <keyword id="691847" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google-Cloud">Google Cloud</keyword> in a bid to improve efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the overall performance of the app. The migration of its infrastructure from <keyword id="141088" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon-Web-Services">Amazon Web Services</keyword> (<keyword id="291131" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="AWS">AWS</keyword>) to Google Cloud is expected to help ShareChat cut expenses on backend technology by as much as 20 per cent. "Google Cloud was our cloud partner of choice given its superior technology, secure and high-performing infrastructure, and cost effectiveness. We were also able to build a high degree of trust with Google's team that made this seamless migration a reality," Bhanu Pratap Singh, Chief Technology Officer, ShareChat, said in a statement. "Developers want tools that can accelerate and improve the app development cycle. Google's advanced tools and integrated offerings like Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Spanner and Kubernetes are aligned well with our requirements." ShareChat currently serves more than 60 million monthly active users in 15 different Indian languages. A large proportion of its active users hail from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, with the majority of them relying on 2G networks. ShareChat decided to migrate to Google Cloud in April. So the migration from its incumbent Cloud platform to Google Cloud took place amid the Covid-19 crisis. "We are delighted to partner with ShareChat on its digital transformation journey, and to help the company implement the world-class scalable and reliable infrastructure that will continue to enable it to deliver innovative and secure cloud-based services to millions of ShareChat users nationwide," said Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Google Cloud India. ShareChat last month announced the sacking of 101 employees, about a fourth of the company's total workforce, due to the Covid-19-induced uncertainties in the advertising market. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/tata-motors-maruti-and-hyundai-offer-discounts-on-cars/articleshow/76324233.cms">After Maruti and Hyundai, Tata Motors offers discounts as car makers get squeezed between slow sales and slower registrations</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/tata-motors-fourth-quarter-revenue-profit-preview-and-share-price-chart/articleshow/76370176.cms">JLR saved the last quarter for Tata motors⁠— but the challenges in China, UK, and Europe are mounting</a>

ShareChat ditches AWS, migrates to Google Cloud to cut costs

New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) The ban on 59 Chinese apps has given homegrown app developers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create world-class products across chat, short videos, and photo/video sharing segments and led by ShareChat, desi apps are now scouting for fresh finds to invest intelligently into scaling their platforms and handle the upcoming rush. In a country where nearly 300 million people are on Facebook, another 400 million on WhatsApp and over 120 million on Chinese app TikTok -- not to forget the millions who are hooked to Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat -- there has not been a single social media platform to date with its roots in India that has created headlines globally. The time is ripe to rise to the occasion and show that Indian programmers can build top-notch social media apps right here, without going to the US or other countries. The regional language social media platform ShareChat is changing the way in which the next billion users will interact on the internet. With over 1 billion monthly Whatsapp shares, users spend more than 25 minutes daily on the platform. ShareChat has a user base of over 60 million monthly active users spread across the country and available in 15 languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri and Urdu. The Bengaluru-based regional language social platform has become so popular that even Twitter came onboard when the four-year-old company raised $100 million in its Series D round of funding last year. "ShareChat is silently leading a social media revolution with a strong focus on regional outreach keeping its Bharat connect pristine," said Berges Y Malu, Director, Public Policy, ShareChat. "We welcome the move from the government against platforms that have had serious privacy, cyber security and national security risks. We expect the government to continue their support for the Indian startup ecosystem," Malu added in a statement. Public is a video-only social platform and has already registered 50 million users, with more than one million videos being created every month. According to Azhar Iqubal, Founder and CEO of Public, we have immense talent and resources in India and the vacuum created by this ban is a great opportunity for Indian app makers to launch products that have the potential to do well globally. "It will also make users more vigilant in checking what permissions they have given to apps as smartphones store sensitive information," said Iqubal. Public is currently available in five Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil and Telugu, and aims to have over 100 million users by the end of the year. Roposo is another leading homegrown short-video making app with more than 65 million downloads in the country. TikTok users, including influencers with huge fan followings, have started switching to Roposo in large numbers after the ban. "We have built Roposo as a clean and ethical platform. The unique idea of channels in Roposo provides every talented Indian with an opportunity to grow rapidly," said Mayank Bhangadia, co-founder of Roposo. Indians have rushed to download social app Chingari, a desi alternative to Chinese TikTok, which is witnessing nearly 1 lakh downloads and over 2 million views per hour since the government banned 59 Chinese apps over national security concerns. Already downloaded over 3 million times, the app which was founded by Bengaluru-based programmers Biswatma Nayak and Siddharth Gautam last year, was trending at the top spot on Google Play Store. "As Chingari is setting new benchmarks, a lot of investors are showing interest in our app. We are holding crucial discussions to get a good investor(s) on board so as to scale up our free-of-cost social platform," informed Nayak. Launched in October 2017, Khabri is another fastest-growing digital audio platform providing content in the regional language. "We urge Indian corporate leaders to come forward and reclaim the country's business ecosystem and consumers through supporting/investing in Indian startups," said Sandeep Singh, co-founder and president, Khabri. "Since the word spread that Indians now have a homegrown and more entertaining alternative to TikTok, we have been recording traffic beyond expectations on our app," said Nayak. Lifestyle community commerce platform Trell has witnessed more than 1 million downloads after India banned Chinese apps. With over 30 million downloads and 9 million monthly active users on its app, Trell has witnessed a 25 times growth within one year. "We welcome all the Tiktok and Chinese apps content creators with open arms to come and engage on Trell. As the largest Indian lifestyle social app, we will continue to ensure that the privacy and data of users will be protected," said Pulkit Agarwal, Co-Founder, Trell. --IANS na/in

Homegrown social media apps turn restless for big leap

<ul><li>Speaking at the Business Insider Global Trends Festival 2020, <keyword id="866223" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kavin-Mittal">Kavin Mittal</keyword> of <keyword id="44033" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="hike">Hike</keyword> said <keyword id="6354632" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="social-media">social media</keyword> companies grow at the back of the customer data. “Your data, my data – but where’s my cut?” he said. </li><li>The average <keyword id="6262601" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="indian-social-media">Indian social media</keyword> user spends 17 hours on platforms every week and consumes over 8.3 gigabytes of data. </li><li>The next big money from social media will come from ads, micropayments and commerce.</li></ul>India is one of the world's biggest markets for social media. But India's homegrown social media startup Hike's founder Kavin Mittal has a question that he believes can change the way we look at social media in the country – what happens when the customers ask for their cut from these platforms for using their data? According to McKinsey's report, the average Indian social media user spends 17 hours on platforms every week and consumes over 8.3 gigabytes of data – that's higher than the average data usage in the US or China. And this enormous data and user numbers, which is only set to get higher (India's total internet users could cross 800 million by 2023), has got social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, setting up shop in India, and feeding on the data produced in India. Speaking at the Business Insider Global Trends Festival 2020, Mittal said, "It's fascinating to see all these social media companies grow at the back of the customer data. Your data, my data – but where's my cut? Customers being the owner of their own data – this is going to be a radical transformation, especially in a market like India." Mittal believes that is the next big leg of monetisation of social media in India, which has so far been riding on ad revenues. The next big money from social media – ads, micropayments and commerce There’s been a lot spoken about the next big wave of social media and the power of revenue it will bring with it. However, even with the millions of new users coming in, Mittal believes that the cost per thousand is still very low in India and so micropayments or small transactions made by users online will be another thought that drives monetization. However, <keyword id="3395480" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Farid-Ahsan">Farid Ahsan</keyword>, founder of <keyword id="3358959" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ShareChat">Sharechat</keyword>, one of India’s largest home grown platforms, still swears by the ad revenue model. “We are not against any sort of monetisation in a low ARPU economy like India. It's important that you are able to build revenue in a way that it's a win-win for everyone whether it's the brand, platform or the user,” said Ahsan. Ahsan believes that the combination of ads and micropayments will lead to a commerce-driven economy. The idea of clubbing ads, micropayments and commerce has also seen the rise of the social commerce vertical in India with homegrown players like Meesho (backed by Facebook), having rapidly made a mark in India. “All of these platforms will eventually become communities with their own economies where there are creators, brands, and consumers. That’s honestly how a platform should be defined – the net GMV of a platform is much larger than what the platform can actually monetize,” he said. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/uber-bus-pradeep-parameswaran-says-india-and-apac-will-follow-egypt-success/articleshow/78788982.cms">EXCLUSIVE: Uber Bus in India soon? Head of Mobility in APAC says he is ready to import the Egypt experiment</a>

‘Where’s my cut?’ the question that can revolutionise social media

<ul><li>Social media companies have proposed the formation of <keyword id="8798741" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="information-trust-alliance">Information Trust Alliance</keyword> (ITA).</li><li>The ITA intends to curb <keyword id="2479020" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Fake-news">fake news</keyword> and hate speech on online platforms in India.</li></ul>The Indian government is working on regulations to censor content to stop the spread of fake news. In the meanwhile, social media platforms which have been facing the flak for it - are also coming together to fight fake news. Facebook, Google, Twitter, ByteDance, ShareChat and YY Inc will be part of the proposed Information Trust Alliance (ITA) to counter fake news. In addition to the digital platforms, the alliance will also include fact checkers, civil society and academia. As per a report by <a href="https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/social-media-to-join-hands-for-cleanup/74200643">ET</a>, the alliance will work on controlling the spread of harmful content like be it hate speeches or even fake news. The report revealed that the social media platforms have held discussions with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The ITA intends to work with academia to run public awareness campaigns in schools, colleges and universities and conduct workshops for content creators. ‘Code of Practice’ As per the above report, the companies have discussed the creation of a ‘Code of Practice’ that will allow the companies to implement a centralised complaint registration mechanism and a standardised redressal process for disputed content. For settling disputes, the code also proposes an arbitration mechanism. An internal IAMAI note adds that there has been no unanimity on the ‘Code of Practice’ as there is a need for “greater deliberation given the different practices followed by various platforms”. While Facebook has been pushing for a self-regulatory mechanism, Google, Twitter and ShareChat have not agreed to this. New guidelines underway The government is already working on formulating new guidelines to regulate social media. The amendments to intermediary guidelines of the IT Act are expected to change the way social media companies monitor and take down content at the request of the government. In September 2019, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology suggested that social media companies should remove illegal content within 24 hours of a request and provide information about the source of the message within 72 hours. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/facebook-is-the-most-popular-social-network-for-governments-spreading-fake-news-and-propaganda/articleshow/71335826.cms">Facebook is the most popular social network for governments spreading fake news and propaganda</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/mysterious-israeli-based-group-is-using-facebook-pages-to-spread-fake-news-and-target-politicians/articleshow/72402953.cms">Mysterious Israeli-based group is using Facebook pages to spread fake news and target politicians</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/elections/news/the-10-most-viewed-fake-news-stories-on-facebook-in-2019-were-just-revealed-in-a-new-report-take-a-look/articleshow/71943706.cms">The 10 most-viewed fake-news stories on Facebook in 2019 were just revealed in a new report - take a look</a>

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