ITV

Category: Social Media

  • igraasp – a news channel for children launched on YouTube

    igraasp – a news channel for children launched on YouTube

    MUMBAI: In today's world of numerous news channels, loud opinions, debates, fake news, chaos and noise, there is little content that is appropriate for children in the news space. Yet it is essential our children understand current affairs from India and around the world. Here is where the idea of a kid friendly news channel for children, by children germinated in the minds of a group of like-minded mothers. igraasp comes as a breath of fresh air to provide children well-curated, constructive, age-relevant news in a creative and well-researched manner.

    igraasp (which is the acronym for 'I Get Ready and Always Step Up) aims to start with a 15-minute weekly capsule of news delivered through their channel on YouTube every Sunday starting in February, 2020.  

    igraasp started when four entrepreneurial mothers – Gayatri Luthra, Priya Wadhawan, Ruchi Mitroo and Shikha Chaturvadi wanted to spread the joy of seeking for information, news and current affairs amongst children. They wanted to provide a news platform for kids which would make them 'future-ready'.

    igraasps founder Priya Wadhawan said, “News is essential for children to build a habit to be updated about current affairs. However, we felt the need for a medium relevant for them as an audience to curate news from across genres and regions presented in a fun engaging manner, building their interest and awareness of the world around them.”

    The founders strongly feel that a digital and child-appropriate current affairs news platform like igraasp will facilitate a child's critical thinking, their emotional intelligence, enable them to comprehend issues, the scale of impact, and appropriate means to effect solutions.

    The anchors for the weekly episode are interestingly crowd-sourced taken from different schools for diversity. These students have also undergone workshops and training for news anchoring. The show is hosted by these students and features child-friendly news across segments including National news, International news, Sports, Environmental updates, Space &Technology and of course the F square (the Fun and Facts section).

    A kid who igraasps will always be ready to strike a conversation, get a handle on a serious situation, quip and quote with proficiency, and always step up to the occasion.

  • Just Human Things and Qyuki launch ‘Overtime’

    Just Human Things and Qyuki launch ‘Overtime’

    MUMBAI: What would happen if aliens took over the world and two employees who hate each other and tired of their daily routine are stuck with each other inside their office? Just Human Things along with Qyuki presents Overtime, India’s first ever a rib-tickling tale on alien invasion and about how the end of the world can either bring unlikely people together or tear humanity apart. The five-episode series will release on 29 January and is promised to be a laugh riot! Written and directed by Ashwin Lakshmi Narayan, this horror-comedy series features Ramya Saxena– lead coder- and Manoj Bhardwaj– the intern essayed by Ronjini Chakraborty and Harsh Mayar respectively.

    ‘Overtime’ revolves around two IT employees who try to survive the horror of the outside world as well as survive each other. As human civilization nears it disastrous fate, Manoj, an intern and his not-so-cooperative boss Ramya are left with no option but to stay inside their office and tolerate each other. What follows are moments of humor and uncertainty as both of them explore ways to endure their encounters with mundane tasks as aliens take on planet Earth.

    Speaking on the release of India’s first ever Alien Invasion Office comedy, Director Ashwin Lakshmi Narayan says, “Sid and I were thinking of doing something around aliens for a while. It was just a matter of understanding the budgets we had, the audience that only knows Jadoo as an alien, and bearing both in mind making something cool and fun. And then one fine day the idea struck. I thought that if an alien attack were to happen, I would never leave my home or space. If I were to go out into the real world, I will die, the aliens will eat me or looking at them I would surrender. As in why do all movies or shows have these people fighting these creatures. Why not make a show where they are just constantly avoiding them and at the same time dealing with problems like living without Wi-Fi, electricity, entertainment, food and so much more. Will a vegetarian become non veg to survive? Will I do drugs knowing I’m going to die tomorrow? Such things became fun to explore. In the end I think we all came together to try and make a very Indian show, with a western influence.”

    Overtime co-producer and Just Human Things founder Sidhanta Mathur shares, “For years I’ve wanted to see a dystopian world in India. I’m heavily inspired by what if situations and how regular people will be affected by it. The idea for an alien invasion being the backdrop is to see what I would do. What would I eat? Would I survive? I think the idea of this while scary is ridiculously funny and we have tried to achieve that balance with Overtime”.

    India’s first disaster comedy, Overtime is about Alien Invasion and those people who want to survive and reinvent themselves as the world nears its end. It is about how there is always a ray of hope and a way to move forward even when humanity may not see another tomorrow.

  • Facebook appoints Avinash Pant as marketing director for India

    Facebook appoints Avinash Pant as marketing director for India

    MUMBAI: Facebook today announced a new addition to its leadership team in India, which is driving the charter for the company’s deepening focus in the country. The latest addition to the India leadership team is Avinash Pant, who will take on the role of Marketing Director at Facebook India. 

    The role of Marketing Director will be a new one at Facebook India, with the mandate to drive the company’s consumer marketing efforts across the family of apps, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Pant comes with twenty-two years of experience working with leading consumer brands such as Nike, Coca-Cola, The Walt Disney Company, and most recently, Red Bull. In his last assignment as the India Marketing Director at Red Bull, he was responsible for building the brand in India, especially amongst the youth, through unique partnerships and content related to sports, music, and dance. Pant is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He will report to Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, India. 

    The announcement comes a year after Facebook announced a new leadership structure in India bringing the company’s functions under Ajit Mohan, reporting directly to its headquarters in Menlo Park. 

    Over the last year, the company has spearheaded several India-focused initiatives with a particular focus on fuelling entrepreneurship and breaking the gender imbalance on the Internet. ‘Boost with Facebook’ and the ‘VC Brand Incubator Program’ were aimed at accelerating the growth of SMBs. In 2019, Facebook also made its first minority investment in a company, Meesho, a social-commerce venture empowering first-time entrepreneurs, especially women in small towns. The company also announced a tie-up with the Government of India’s Common Services Centre (CSC) to provide tools and training to more than 25,000 women in 3000 villages around the country. It was also a year when Facebook announced a ground-breaking partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC) that made it the exclusive digital content rights partner in the Indian subcontinent for ICC global events.

    Said Facebook India VP and MD Ajit Mohan, “We’ve been working towards deepening our mission to build empowered communities, form stronger local partnerships, create economic opportunities for SMBs and entrepreneurs to grow in India, and, to do our part to break the gender imbalance on the Internet. Consumer marketing is a new strategic area of focus for Facebook and one where we will dramatically increase our investment in communicating directly to consumers. Avinash is one of the best marketers in the country, and am delighted that he is joining us on this exciting charter to shape the voice of Facebook’s family of apps in India.”
    In the last few months, Facebook has recruited for key roles across multiple functions such as Marketing, Sales, Partnerships, and Policy. Consistent with the new organization structure, these roles have been spread across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. 

    “We are dedicated to creating an environment where our people can be their authentic selves and unleash the power of their diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Teams at Facebook are focused on channeling that energy to be an ally to India in its exciting journey of transformation and growth,” added Mohan. 

  • 7 Top Video Trends to Watch Out for in 2020

    7 Top Video Trends to Watch Out for in 2020

    In a world where capturing consumers’ attention is getting harder, and customer acquisition is getting more expensive, video is one of the best ways for brands to communicate with their target audience. With the new year rolling in, now is a great time for brands to rethink their video strategy and take it to the next level in order to maximize conversion. Here are a few exciting video trends that we believe will be game-changers in 2020 and beyond:

    Personalized Videos

    Personalized videos include the viewer’s name and other details in the storyline, enabling brands to deliver communication that is highly relevant and targeted. Such videos leverage CRM data to help build stronger relationships with customers and enable effective generation of qualified leads.

    Interactive Videos

    Interactive videos put viewers in the driver’s seat, enabling them to make choices as they watch. Infused with quizzes, opinion polls, treasure hunts and more, interactive videos pique viewers’ interest and help build brand loyalty. Since they have higher recall value, they result in better conversion rates.

    Shoppable Videos

    Making videos shoppable allows brands to shorten the consumer journey and increase last-mile conversion. Being able to choose products and add them to a cart is not only a ‘wow’ factor for viewers, it also empowers them with greater convenience and ease of access.

    Vertical Videos

    With smart phones becoming the de-facto device among millennials, creating videos for viewing in portrait (rather than landscape) mode is the latest megatrend. As influencer marketing gains popularity, and brands cash in on the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) factor, vertical videos are fast becoming the norm across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.

    360-Degree Videos

    360-degree videos literally provide a larger than life viewing experience, by capturing the action from all directions! This innovative technique offers an immersive, interactive viewing experience that results in higher video completion rates.

    User Generated Content (UGC)

    Today, brands are increasingly listening to their audience and tapping into the stories that people are co-creating. UGC videos are now a vital part of brands’ community building efforts.  They inspire greater trust than brand sponsored content, are shared more widely and require very little investment.

    Silent Videos

    Silent videos, which primarily rely on visuals for messaging, are currently trending on social media platforms. The convenience they offer is clear – people can watch these videos whenever, wherever without missing anything. Whether they are in a busy public place (like an airport/metro), or in a quiet area (like a hospital), they can enjoy an uninterrupted viewing experience.

    As the lines between content and commerce blur, brands must adopt new trends and technologies for video marketing. These can help deliver dynamic, compelling viewing experiences which build brand love, drive transactions and increase ROI. For best results, brands should partner with a one-stop video agency that offers both high quality creative services along and cutting-edge technology.

    (The author is vice president, Brands Services, Prime Focus Technologies. The views expressed are his own and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

     

  • Building a large creator community independent of influencers: Firework’s Sunil Nair

    Building a large creator community independent of influencers: Firework’s Sunil Nair

    MUMBAI: If you thought the world had enough of short format content, it's about to change that perception. Going beyond lipsync, filters, influencer dependent videos, Silicon Valley-based short-video making app Firework is looking at shortspan storytelling and building a large creator community which is not dependent upon influencers.

    After a few days of its launch in the country, Firework gave the mandate of its Indian business to Sunil Nair appointing him as the CEO and MD for its India operations. Nair has been associated with content creation for a long time but that of a different format. Having spent nearly seven years with ALTBalaji, he has experimented with long-format fiction shows but the arena of short-format is new to him. Nair finds the new journey more interesting as telling a story in 30 seconds demands the content to go beyond gimmicks.

    Nair claimed that younger audiences like teens are not committing time to watching an entire  show because there are too many things that the generation is doing. According to him, all the content they consume is between all the other things they are doing resulting in smaller attention span.  

    “Short format as a content feature became popular in China and it is also popular in all countries where there is long commute time because when you are in a bus, or a cab, or train and trying to watch content you cannot watch 1 hour show, you can watch 20 videos because you just flip very quickly. That’s the audience which is far more interesting as compared to an audience which is watching long form content because long form content has set its business. A creator ecosystem is already there, there are filmmakers, there are lots of business strategies. Every OTT service now has set its business in a proper manner that they don’t need to really have a new way of doing things,” he added.

    As the conversation proceeded, Nair had shown the quality of content and the various genres including travel, food, fashion available on Firework enthusiastically. He said that an influencer is not going to bring any value to content as they are more interested in bringing people to like them.

    “We are saying that creator has to tell us story. It is not about taking a selfie that he or she was in front of Tajmahal as that is meant for friends and family and may be five people outside who would be interested in their personal life. We are saying that can that same creator tell the story of Tajmahal or Shah Jahan or Mumtaz in the same span,” he explained.

    Firework, globally, is redefining itself which has got offices in Japan, Latin America, Russia, Poland, USA, Canada, and India currently. In India, the video-sharing app is focusing on Tier1 and Tier2 cities largely. Moreover, it is not restricting itself to Hindi or English content. “Anyone who has a story to tell in any language is welcome,” as Nair put it.

    In terms of monetisation, Fireworks would allow brands to come on board in India as it does in Japan and travel, lifestyle, E-commerce brands are showing great interest. Moreover, if any celebrity comes on the Fireworks network , followers who want to have private interaction can pay a monthly price and chat with them. However, he did not reveal the possible price-pointers. He also mentioned that people in Japan are already paying $9 per month to talk to the people that they want to follow. Firework has been widely seen as a rival to TikTok in India. Nair declines to term the social video sharing app as Firwork's competitor.

    “I think our creators are the biggest marketing medium. Firstly, we don’t behave like typical consumer marketing. The focus is not on getting 500 million downloads because that’s probably the wrong way of running a business at this time. The focus is on creating good content and getting discovered wherever it can be discovered. So our marketing is largely content driven. So the conventional method that brand head or marketing head coming and saying that you know I need x million to do a marketing campaign does not work. The x million is used by us for creating more content and that getting discovered across wherever it is,” he commented on the marketing strategy.

    Talking about objectives, he said that buying downloads is not a way he wants to run the business. He hopes to have about 50 to 100 million DAU in the this year or so which makes it a sizeable media platform. He also aims to have around 10,000 Indian creators in six months across eight-nine languages. The company is looking at creating a massive content-bank in India by working with a lot more film schools, content creators, directors and partners.

    “My responsibility is not just to settle India but also to open up to South East Asia and Middle East. We are opening our Indonesia office and we have our Dubai office coming up,” he signed off.

  • Facebook’s expanded transparency features will roll out in Q2 2020

    Facebook’s expanded transparency features will roll out in Q2 2020

    MUMBAI: Facebook is updating its Ad Library to increase the level of transparency for political ads and provide users with more control over the ads they see. The platform will be adding a feature that will help to view audience size in the ad library, will provide better ad library search and filtering, control over and see fewer political ads.

    The Ad Library is a unique tool to shine a light on political and social issue ads — a public archive that allows people to see all the ads politicians and campaigns are running on Facebook and Instagram and those that have run in the past. “This is an important step in making political ads more transparent and advertisers more accountable: the public can see every ad served to anyone in an easily searchable database,” said Facebook.

    Facebook launched the Ad Library in May 2018 and over the past several months they have spoken to dozens of political campaigns, activists, NGOs, nonprofits and volunteers about its policies for political ads. “Two themes we heard was that first, people want more transparency over who is using ads to try to influence voters and second, they want more control over the ads they see,” said Facebook.

    The platform further announced, “The expanded transparency features will roll out in the first quarter of 2020 and will apply in all countries where we facilitate “Paid for by” disclaimers on ads. We plan to deploy the political ads control starting in the US early this summer, eventually expanding this preference to more locations.”

    It also said, “There has been much debate in recent months about political advertising online and the different approaches that companies have chosen to take. While Twitter has chosen to block political ads and Google has chosen to limit the targeting of political ads, we are choosing to expand transparency and give more controls to people when it comes to political ads.”

    “We don’t think decisions about political ads should be made by private companies, which is why we are arguing for regulation that would apply across the industry. The Honest Ads Act is a good example — legislation that we endorse and many parts of which we’ve already implemented — and we are engaging with policy makers in the European Union and elsewhere to press the case for regulation too. Frankly, we believe the sooner Facebook and other companies are subject to democratically accountable rules on this the better,” said Facebook.

  • MissMalini launches MissMalini Trending

    MissMalini launches MissMalini Trending

    MUMBAI: MissMalini proudly launches MissMalini Trending – a social media news desk at an upscale Juhu outlet. The beloved blog’s first-ever news desk will feature digital influencers and experts in all their glory. The pioneer of Indian lifestyle blogging, MissMalini is a multi-media and multi-platform content portal with more than 10 million unique monthly followers across platforms.

    MissMalini founder and creative director Malini Agarwal said “MissMalini is delighted to introduce MissMalini Trending. This platform will feature the favorite digital superstars as today everyone wants to know what superstars wear, whom they date, what they eat, etc. I think these creators have a huge impact on the millennials in the nation. They also face immense pressure to live up to their image. A lot of work goes into keeping up with the perfect image that they put forth on the internet. This platform recognizes their work and motivates them to keep flourishing on social media.”

    In today’s world of social media, a digital influencer occupies the space of a Bollywood celebrity. Gaining popularity on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, they have managed to position themselves as leaders and role models of the internet generation. They have become an integral part of the modern youth culture in India and play a fundamental role in shaping their personalities. This initiative works as a dossier to provide a personal account of all the creators enlisted on the page. The platform acknowledges their work and highlights any new developments and expansions made by them in their respective fields.

    Malini Agarwal launched her blog perched on a couch in 2008. Taking the digital world by storm, MissMalini's on the list of leading entertainment portals in India. MissMalini Entertainment supports emerging talent and uplifts fresh content creators. A productive digital space for new-comers, the company dedicates its efforts to guide up-coming influencers through their journey.

    An influencer herself, Agarwal has taken several initiatives including Malini's girl tribe to transform social media into a better place. She promotes positivity and spreading joy by eliminating trolls and shaming. Focusing efforts on building the women’s community, she contributes to associations such as the Women Innovation Entrepreneurship Foundation (WIEF) and the women by attending events organized by them. Empowering women and making a difference has always been centric to the celebrated blogger.

  • India tops list in requesting TikTok for content restrictions, user info access

    India tops list in requesting TikTok for content restrictions, user info access

    MUMBAI: India has topped the list in making the highest number of legal and emergency requests to takedown specific content and to access user information, TikTok said in its first-ever Transparency Report for the first half of 2019 (1 January 2019 to 30 June 2019).

    A short-video sharing application in its report claimed that India made over 99 legal requests and eight emergency requests to TikTok, taking the total requests to 107. Followed by the United States of 79 requests, of which 68 are legal and eleven for emergency requests.

    ByteDance owned TikTok in its report said that at least 47 per cent of India’s requests have been complied with by the platform, whereas it has obliged to 86 per cent of requests made by the United States.  

    The chart of content restricts missed China’s name. “We did not receive any requests from countries other than those listed in the chart below,” the transparency report said.

    TikTok, the China-based application touts over 1.3 billion installs worldwide, has recently been banned by the United States army amid security concerns. Similarly, the platform, which has gained popularity in India, has also come under scrutiny over objectionable content.

    Meanwhile, TikTok it received over 3345 copyrighted content takedown notices from across the world, of which 85 per cent content was removed, the report said. “We honour valid take-down requests based on violations of copyright law, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).”

    Like TikTok, the social media giant Facebook, along with search-engine giant Google have also been coming out with transparency report in a timely manner that specifies takedown requests.

  • 90% of new internet users consume regional content in India

    90% of new internet users consume regional content in India

    MUMBAI: According to Google official, 90 per cent of new internet users in India consume content in regional languages. With increasing internet penetration and India being the most internet consumption heavy country with over 530 million users, it is giving content platforms to bag this opportunity and follow the  ‘vernacular’ fashion as the most trending topic in the industry.

    From writing to video/audio content, here are the fastest growing regional content startups of 2019.

    Tiktok

    TikTok is a social media video app for creating and sharing short lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos. It is arguably India’s fastest-growing and most-downloaded app today, with 200 million users in Tier I, II, and III and even the deepest pockets of India to share their passion and creative expression. Available in 10 Indian languages, Tiktok added 88.6 million users in the country early this year. By connecting and empowering digital Indians through content, Tiktok looks forward to making a positive contribution to the country’s thriving creative economy.

    Momspresso.com

    Momspresso.com is the largest user-generated content sharing platform that offers support to women across the country, not just in their journeys as parents but also in their lives. Launched in 2010,  based out of Gurgaon, Haryana, it is a platform that attracts 12000 bloggers and 4000 video creators, and sees 83Mn monthly page views for its blogs whereas 163Mn monthly video views in 10 different languages including English, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, and Kannada. Momspresso eyes 35 crores of revenue for the year 2019-2020; and closed the year 2018-2019 at 16 crores. Over 100 brands (Dettol, Dove, Nestle, etc.) have engaged with Momspresso.com in the last 12 months to connect with women and are actively spending on regional content to tap vernacular users. Earlier this year, it also launched India’s first digital vernacular agency, Mompresso Bharat.

    Hubhopper

    Launched in the year 2015, Hubhopper is India's largest podcast and audio-on-demand platform at present. With over 1 million hours of content spread across 12 vernacular languages, Hubhopper is present across 15 million touchpoints. It has managed to change the way people consume audio content in India. Hubhopper has launched ‘Hubhopper Studio’ an online studio that enables the potential content creators to launch their very own podcast in 3 simple steps: Record, Launch, and Distribute. It provides independent and small-town podcasters with all the assistance and their podcasts get featured on Hubhopper under ‘Hubhopper Original Program’, which has been a hit amongst both urban and rural listeners and aims to on-board 5000 podcasters in the next 1 year. Hubhopper envisions to grow parallel with the audio streaming industry and keep making the process of content consumption and creation simpler and more beneficial while emerging as one of the best content-disseminating platforms.

    Vokal

    Vokal, a knowledge-sharing platform for Hindi users recently added 10 regional languages (Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Oriya, and Assamese) on its platform allowing sharing of information and get answers to queries. Trying to bridge the information and knowledge gap among the non-English internet users by enabling peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, the platform sees a huge scope for such a service in regional languages. Vokal has more than 2 million monthly active users and it is aiming to take the same to 15-20 million by the end of 2019.

    Sharechat

    Similar to Facebook and Twitter, ShareChat enables users to post and share videos, songs, images, and other content, as well as discover content that is topical and trending. Launched in January 2015, it offers the content consumption and sharing platform only in Indian vernacular languages. ShareChat now boasts of 60 million monthly active users and aims to double its MAU by December 2020, it is home to 15 Indic languages. It aims to strengthen its presence in Tier-II cities.

    Trell

    Fondly referred to as the Video Pinterest for India powered by user-generated original content, Trell is a community-based platform enabling lifestyle discovery through meaningful content in various Indian languages. Trell bridges the gap between users looking for meaningful content around lifestyle inspirations and content creators or aspiring influencers who wish to create vlogs of their interests and lifestyle stories via videos and photos.

    Trell has a highly engaging community of 1 Million Monthly Active Users on the mobile app who did 80 Million Content Views last month [Cumulative: 190 Million Views]. Trell App has been downloaded more than 3 Million times historically with 1.6 Million original and meaningful content pieces around lifestyle to date. All content creators are acquired organically by virtue of various viral loops and growing community on the platform.  Trell aims to be the biggest lifestyle community-content-commerce platform of India by 2020.

  • YouTube tools to help creators understand copyright issues

    YouTube tools to help creators understand copyright issues

    MUMBAI: YouTube will offer creators more transparency about content to curb copyright issues. The platform is adding new tools for creators with more details on content triggering copyright complaints.

    According to Forbes report, the platform is also adding an Assisted Trim editing tool directly within YouTube Studio’s copyright details page. Creators will be able to trim out the reported copyright content.

    To give the best viewer experience YouTube is working on adjustable endpoints for claims within the Assisted Trim feature.