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Tag: Chingari

  • Chingari, Scope Entertainment collaborate to promote budding artists

    Chingari, Scope Entertainment collaborate to promote budding artists

    Mumbai: On-chain social app, Chingari, powered by Gari, has announced a partnership with Scope Entertainment. As a part of this arrangement, Scope Entertainment’s content library will be available to the Chingari community and will enable its creators to create content. These new-age songs from Scope Entertainment will be promoted by Chingari to increase their exposure. This will be accomplished by utilising 360-degree promotions for all their tracks and promoting their upcoming musicians via Chingari’s other avenues like Chingari Gupshupp, Kahi Unkahi audio session or Chingari Live interviews.

    Chingari is a short video app that allows users to create and share videos. Chingari has introduced Gari Tokens and a Gari Wallet, thereby establishing the creator’s economy.

    Meanwhile, Scope Entertainment is a destination that caters to all aspects of music and entertainment, including production, artist management, brand building, distribution, international events, and IP festivals. Their industry specialists and leaders are actively involved in managing and growing in-house talent/artists through services like music production, promotion, digital distribution, and social media marketing. Some of the most affluent names that have been associated with Scope Entertainment include AP Dhillon (The Takeover Tour), Jasmine Sandlas, Diljit Dosanjh (Born to Shine-India Tour), and Lil Pump (Time Stamp). They also exclusively manage celebrated artists like Simran Kaur Dhadli, Ashish Bhatia, Kaka Ji, Nav Sandhu and more from the Punjabi music scene.

    Scope Entertainment is launching four new artists this year, including Rawme Hooda, Agam Aulakh, and Jaymeet, under their upcoming record label and as part of their management.

    Chingari co-founder & CEO Sumit Ghosh remarked, “We are delighted to have Scope Entertainment as our valued partners. This partnership brings original content from new and upcoming artists to our creators. Nurturing and promoting upcoming talent has been one of the core beliefs at Chingari, and we will continue to do that along with making our content library even more exhaustive for our 160M+ creators and users.”

    Scope Entertainment CEO Ajay Bansal said, “Our core vision is to emerge as the revolutionary leaders of the entertainment world. Our intention is to volte-face the traditional culture of show business, to rewrite a brand-new inspiring tale, and we have managed to find an ideal match with Chingari. Through its extensive reach and strong monthly active user community across tier II, III, and metros alike, Scope Entertainment’s content will travel far and wide. We’re looking forward to amplifying our reach and connecting with a larger fanbase by utilising the platforms’ popularity.”

    Chingari recently introduced Chingari Audio Rooms, through which fans can interact directly with the stars. It also has show formats such as Gupshupp and Chingari Live, through which the platform will be promoting Scope Entertainment’s content and shows.

  • More education, awareness & upskilling are important as we solve some interesting problems in the Web3 space: Chingari CTO Tariq Wali

    More education, awareness & upskilling are important as we solve some interesting problems in the Web3 space: Chingari CTO Tariq Wali

    Mumbai: Launched back in 2018, the short-video app Chingari has made rapid strides. Since then, the home-grown app has emerged as the one-stop destination for entertaining, engaging videos across diverse categories such as dancing, singing, transformation, innovative skills, etc. Chingari’s eclectic platform entertains 150 million+ users across India and witnesses videos in 15+ languages.

    The app has been working towards adding value to its content creators by enabling them to create unique content that gets liked, shared and rewarded through Gari Social Tokens. This fosters content monetisation and puts the power of content creation directly in the hands of the creators. The first Indian social crypto token, Gari, has been listed on several top global centralised exchanges, including HUObi, FTX, KuCoin, Gate.io, OKEx, and MEXC Global. Chingari is bringing the web3 revolution to the creator economy with its Gari token. Gari is now available on the Chingari app, and creators can start making videos and earning Gari Social Tokens.

    Indiantelevision.com caught up with Chingari’s chief technology officer, Tariq Wali. He describes himself as, “There is not a silver bullet to build and run a successful startup. A start-up is anything but its products that don’t just work but delight their users. Technology is an enabler to solve user/business problems. Most of my time goes into what I call building the organisation, and that’s a combination of people, process, product, and technology.

    “I come from a systems/software/video engineering background, having seen scale and disruption in technology enabling startups early on – my engagement could be anything from providing direction to engineering and product to solve complex problems, design and architecture to any trivial issue that impacts Chingari users and ensuring we have the right instrumentation towards the reliability of our products.

    “That said, I lead data, backend, AIML, DevOps/SRE, and product as lead/manager/comrade, ensuring all our investments are protected and setting the vision and building towards our two-year roadmap.”

    Edited Excerpts:

    On the short-video industry that has evolved over the past few years

    Tariq: It has evolved significantly. A lot has happened in the last two to three years. Globally, the video industry has shot up on account of content being consumed digitally in different forms, like connected televisions, mobile devices, short-form content, long-form content, and live linear content. User-generated content (UGC) was one thing that was slightly behind.

    At some point, Tiktok led that race, and when it got banned, it gave birth to homegrown short video apps. That was a few years ago. Now India is leading from the front in the short video space. The UGC short is a real thing. It has created a new industry called the “creator economy.” This is a full-time job that pays money to millions of creators around the world, including in India.

    On web2 platforms, creators and influencers would create content and not get paid for it. But in web3, creators get paid. Chingari is the world’s first social media product on a blockchain and has a blockchain economic design to it. We incentivise content creators to create content. Users are also incentivised to consume that content. The creator economy is an industry like e-commerce.

    On the challenges of growing rapidly at scale

    Tariq: Lack of tech talent. The challenge is that there is rapid growth in tier two and three cities, with improved internet penetration and the exploitation of smartphones. Everyone has access to the internet and social media. They are also getting onto short-form video platforms, which means scale and tremendous growth. Engineering maturity for a tech organisation like ours to have engineering muscle to build products and services to support that kind of growth is very important. Globally, there is a shortage of web3 talent in short-form content.

    For a company like ours, it becomes twice as challenging. We have to attract the right talent. That is where we have to innovate. More education, awareness, and upskilling are all important as we solve some interesting problems in the web3 space. 

    On Chingari’s USP

    Tariq: We have a strong business model that is very unique. Other short-video businesses do not have that. We are a crypto web3 organisation. Web3 is the birth of a new Internet. The Internet that you know of today is a product of the exploitation that has happened over the past two decades. Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon, or “big tech,” created these social media products and amassed massive amounts of user data. That data was exploited by these companies. Users get nothing. On the other hand, web3 is creating a new Internet which is de-centralised, transparent, and borderless.

    Chingari creates products and services around a community. We are about a community, not about a user. The users become the community. Other short video apps are about users and exploiting their data. They run that old rat race. We are not doing that. We build everything for the community, and the community has a say in what we build.

    There is a process of governance. We have 3,00,000 active community members on one of our channels. Then there are another few hundred thousand members on Twitter. We have an open source roadmap. There is a clear visibility of what we are building and why. We have a token system wherein users can buy a token, which shows that they believe in the project. They invest in that token, which has utility. That token acts as a currency on our platform and is called Gari.

    On the business model

    Tariq: Creators make money from creating content. The videos get shared on the network. It gets likes, shares, downloads, and so on and so forth. You make money out of it. The more time users spend on the platform watching and engaging with the content, the more money they make. Our programme is called Gari Mining. It is about engaging with content. You kind of mine the content. The network of users spends time on a daily basis and the pool of tokens is allocated on a daily basis. Both creators and users make money.

    There are other things. We have an NFT marketplace coming up. We have a management and processing fee for the transactions done on the blockchain. Our monetisation opportunities are around NFTs, the token utility use cases. There are also a small number of crypto-led advertisements and partnerships.

    On Chingari app’s usage and targets that have been set for the year

    Tariq: We have nearly one million crypto users on the platform. We have 45 million users on the short video side. We have a significant number of users converting to the crypto wallet. The Gari miners spend a significant amount of time on the platform. Their engagement is unparalleled compared to any other short video app in the world. Some spend hours watching content as they get paid for it.

    We are definitely on-boarding a lot more crypto users this year. The aim is to take on board as many as possible. We are scaling short video, which is our core product, to transition it to be a pure-play web3 product. There will be a social media component to it. We have audio rooms. We are building a live video which will also have rich crypto integration in it.

    On trends being seen in terms of the kind of short form content being consumed

    Tariq: There is a wide range of content available, including dance, music, motivational, DIY, fitness, and sports. There is a higher tendency for people to consume more dance and entertainment content.

    On the app’s tech features that help users create more innovative content

    Tariq: We have significantly invested in the cameras. That is a USP for us. We have made that experience seamless for creators to create beautiful, high-quality videos. We have given them the right set of tools to create those videos and service them on the platform. Then there are features like boosting one’s profile or boosting one’s post with tokens. You can ensure that your post gets viral and has a wider reach. The success of our platform lies in A.I. ML.

    Everything is intelligently processed. The content gets uploaded and it is then moderated, classified, and categorised to determine its premiumness. Content is run through the recommendation pipeline. So ultimately, there is a multi-stage AI/ML recommendation and content management system that gives the right kind of content to the user at any given point of time.

    On regional languages

    Tariq: We work in 13 languages. We are going international. We have Indonesia, Turkey, and the US. We will enter Europe. There is good interest both in the token and in the product. Tamil and Telugu are doing really well in India. Regional is the future, though the majority of content consumption in India is still in Hindi and English.

    On the role of NFTs and crypto for the Chingari app

    Tariq: We are building an NFT video marketplace. To some extent, web3 NFTs have been associated with art and music. But nothing is there around video, especially with UGC. We are the first ones to really build it. The goal isn’t just to be the first to do it. We are solving a very unique problem. The creator economy has massive potential globally. We are solving this with crypto through web3, transparent incentivisation and engagement. Now we are taking things to the next level with a creator-led NFT marketplace where anybody can basically create, buy, sell, mint, and auction UGC videos. We reckon it will fare well.

    On the confusion regarding crypto regulation

    Tariq: I think that with any innovation that has the potential to disrupt incumbent industries, those industries view it as a threat. Crypto can disrupt the banking, finance, and insurance industries. The government and the industry realise this. Policymakers recognise it. So there is going to be some amount of resistance. India has 100 million users in the crypto space, and a lot of good people realise the potential that crypto and web3 have. It shows that India is leading from the front in web 3. Polygon and Chingari are examples. India has the largest web developer talent in the world. We have to capitalise on that.

    There is massive potential for other verticals as well, like tech, healthcare etc. Regulatory pressure will be there. There will be resistance, but it will sort of become conducive at some point, one way or another. Crypto projects are such that one keeps building and solving things, innovating. That is the philosophy. The process of creating a new Internet is not going to be easy. You are going to be disrupting things. There will be challenges and hurdles, but we have to marry them.

    On the importance of e-commerce in terms of building a creator economy

    Tariq: I don’t think we have cracked that nut really well. There is potential in the short video space for e-commerce, but our focus is a lot on the user experience. We do not want to introduce anything intrusive that hampers the user experience.

    On the boost that Jio, 5G have given the short video industry

    Tariq: The quality of experience and services needs to improve for the video industry. Our backbone systems have to improve a lot. If 5G is the answer, then it has to scale and fly, but I do not think that it has made a big difference as yet for the commercial or consumer Internet. There is still network congestion in many cases in a city like Bengaluru, but it is a very important problem that needs to be solved by telcos and the government. We do have the benefit that data here is far cheaper than in other countries, but the download and bandwidth improvement that we are promised with 4G or 5G needs to happen.

    On data privacy

    Tariq: It is very important. It is a significant part of everything that we do. It is about security being layered into how and what we build.

    On fund raising plans and an M&A possibility

    Tariq: Yes, we are in discussions to raise funds. The sentiment towards funding should be positive because, as I said, we are building in the web3 and crypto space. Engineering muscle and capital are needed to solve interesting problems. We are positive about our future due to the problems that we are solving and the roadmap and community that we have. We are not looking to acquire anyone.

    On the factors that determine valuation

    Tariq: “Valuation” in our case is about what we are doing, the roadmap. Of course, it is about users, engagement, growth, and expansion. It is also about the vertical that you are in. I think that on that checklist we are really green. We scored really well on those points. We are the first short video platform of this scale on the blockchain. It is not just that we are on blockchain. We are doing something really unique and interesting in a way that nobody else is doing. Instagram, Youtube, and Tiktok cannot do it. But we are doing it.

  • Saregama inks music licensing deal with Chingari

    Saregama inks music licensing deal with Chingari

    Mumbai: Music label Saregama has inked global music licensing deal with homegrown short-format app Chingari.

    As part of the deal, the entire catalogue of the music label will be made available on Chingari, allowing users to create innovative content using the robust music library of over 130K songs in diverse Indian languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi and Gujarati among others, said the statement.

    The deal will also have the recent slate of new content that the music label has acquired off late. A quick scan of the recent additions include music of the films such as “Bellbottom,” forthcoming projects like “Gangubai Kathiawad,” “Maidaan,” and the next untitled project of Ranveer Singh with director Shankar.

    The deal also includes music from forthcoming Telugu films like “Sarkaru Vaari Paata” (starring Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu) and “Shyam Singha Roy” (featuring popular Telugu leading man Nani), hit singles of Badshah, B Praak, Arjun Kanungo, and Shreya Ghoshal among others as well as latest Punjabi tracks of Kaka, Amy Virk, Sukh-E, Parmish Varma and more, songs of Bhojpuri superstars like Khesari Lal Yadav, Pawan Singh and Ritesh Pandey and others, all the new songs of popular Gujarati singers Rakesh Barot and Kajal Meheriya.

    “Chingari creators are known for creating out-of-the-box videos. Saregama is a power bank of songs and offers a diverse slate of genres. Our creators can use this to their advantage and develop some fantastic content pieces,” stated Chingari CEO and co-founder Sumit Ghosh.

    “Our aim at Saregama is to make our rich music library be made available to the legions of music lovers from all over the world on as many platforms as possible. To that essence, our partnership with Chingari is a natural fit, given the large followership it enjoys,” said Saregama MD Vikram Mehra. “We are in the midst of a content boom, and we are looking forward excitedly at the immense creativity that content creators will bring with our music on the Chingari platform.”

    “With the success of short video apps, influencers have gained strategic importance beyond being just content creators,” said Chingari COO and co-founder Deepak Salvi. “Saregama, on the other hand, has been a market disruptor & leader with its refreshing slate of song genres. It will be exciting to see new developments take shape under this collab.”

  • Chingari collaborates with Benchmark Entertainment for 20 music videos

    Chingari collaborates with Benchmark Entertainment for 20 music videos

    Mumbai: Homegrown short-video sharing platform Chingari on Tuesday announced its partnership with Benchmark Entertainment. As a part of the deal, Chingari along with Benchmark Entertainment will be releasing 20 new songs over the next six months.

    Chingari app users will be able to get access to the new music videos that will be launched by Benchmark Entertainment. The users will be able to watch the full videos of these songs on Chingari Multiplex/Superhit Songs platform. These songs will remain on Chingari app for a period of three years, said the statement.

    “Chingari has catapulted to become one of the most successful short video apps in India as it continues to innovate and expand its offering to suit the needs of its users,” remarked Chingari app co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh. “We have a strong media library and are constantly working at strengthening it with exclusive, entertaining content. Our association with Benchmark Entertainment is a step in this direction.”

    Benchmark Entertainment has released thirteen blockbuster videos featuring popular names such as Karan Kundra, Shraddha Arya, Suyyash Rai, Gajendra Verma, and Ieshaan Sehgal. Their latest track “Insaaf” featuring TV actor Parth Samthaan and Samreen Kaurwas was released in conjunction with Chingari on 8 October and is already gaining in the popularity charts on the Chingari app. “Our focus is to bring together a community of people who want to do more with music and redefine ways in which content is consumed,” said Benchmark Entertainment COO Mukesh Mishra on the association.

    “This partnership will help us both to explore new opportunities & areas to foster the growth. We believe that it is an ideal platform to promote our music videos and the users of Chingari will appreciate this content,” commented Benchmark Entertainment founder Sandil Dang.

    To promote the song “Insaaf,” Chingari has also organised a contest for its users. As a part of this contest, content creators and influencers are being encouraged to make videos using the song Insaaf and the best videos in this segment stand a chance to win 20 lakh Chingari coins, said the platform.

    “At Chingari, we are always looking at new and innovative ways to connect with the customers and add stickiness to the platform,” said Chingari app co-founder and COO Deepak Salvi. “We are happy to partner with Benchmark Entertainment and hope that our users will find these tracks a good addition to our music library.”

  • The Q set to bring new show ‘Jurm Ka Chehra’

    The Q set to bring new show ‘Jurm Ka Chehra’

    Mumbai: Hindi general entertainment channel, The Q has announced the launch of its first crime fiction show “Jurm Ka Chehra”. The show will premiere on 4 September at 9 p.m and will subsequently air on weekends at the same time.

    The channel held a virtual audition for the show on the short video platform Chingari. Chingari users were asked to send in their auditions to The Q in the form of showreels and monologues directly on the platform. The auditions were held over 20 days with an age no bar approach. “Over 47,000 users participated for a role in the show garnering over a billion impressions,” the channel said in a statement.

    The show will be hosted by Kinshuk Vaidya and will feature Chingari users ‘The Girish’ from Nanded, ‘Rubulrox’ from Assam, ‘Pornima Garg’ from Lucknow, and ‘Rajesh Singhal’ from Rajasthan.

    “The Q has constantly leveraged the strength and reach of the digital ecosystem to keep audiences entertained and engaged at all times irrespective of platform. We have always ensured, we have a Zara Hatke approach to everything we do,” said The Q, chief operating officer, Krishna Menon. “The digital space is evolving and it is home to very talented creators who are truly deserving. We have constantly explored new means of engaging with this ecosystem and have brought stories to The Q that are unique, and compelling. Our association with Chingari is in line with our vision and we are excited about the response we have received on this direct outreach.”

    “You never know where the next big creator will be spotted. He or she just needs to be identified. Collaborations are always a refreshing manner to bring out talent from diverse walks of life, irrespective of the platform. We are proud of our association with The Q and feel privileged to offer such opportunities to our creators that can do justice to their talent and help them become rightfully famous. We look forward to creating many such refreshing properties for our creators,” said Chingari, co-founder and chief operating officer, Deepak Salvi.

    “Jurm Ka Chehra” will create awareness about modern age crimes in society ranging from common day-to-day identifiable situations to more complex situations such as cybercrimes, and online frauds, said the channel.

  • Chingari marks first anniversary with #SaalEkChingariAnek campaign

    Chingari marks first anniversary with #SaalEkChingariAnek campaign

    Mumbai: Socio-commerce app Chingari has launched #SaalEkChingariAnek to mark its first anniversary. The platform has also announced its official Chingari anthem to offer creators a chance to be part of its celebration by creating interesting videos and winning lakhs of Chingari Coins.

    Chingari app CEO and co-founder, Sumit Ghosh said, “It has been a memorable one year. We saw a rapid upward growth trajectory owing to the efforts of the team. We shall continue to provide a plethora of opportunities to the artists in the country and aim at becoming the voice of the creators who often struggle to get an unbiased platform. The long-term objective of the brand is to foster the growth of art professionals so that they can explore their maximum potential and gain from it.”

    The platform provides an independent stage for content creators, and promotes their passions and creativity through various contests. “In the past one year, the app has collaborated with various brands and celebrities to expand its user base and open new opportunities for the users on its platform”, added Ghosh. “It has also developed a learning platform for content creators where artists can learn from experienced professionals and sharpen their skills.” 

    Chingari, COO and co-founder, Deepak Salvi said, “Just like entrepreneurs and institutions invest in science, commerce and technology, similarly our aim is to invest in nurturing talent and those who create it. Past one year has helped us understand the psychology, demographics and audience perception around creative content and we aim at harnessing this data and information to further upgrade our strategies for creators across the country to benefit from them.”

    The anthem ‘Bann Chingari’ has been written by creative director Pranat Ghude, with a multilingual, millennial appeal to capture the essence of Bharat. The anthem is also available on leading music streaming platforms. 

  • Chingari, Radio City team up to offer more digital content to users

    Chingari, Radio City team up to offer more digital content to users

    Mumbai: Short video app Chingari has announced its collaboration with Radio City to promote the demand for digital content among a niche user base. 

    The partnership aims at expanding the brands’ footprint by providing entertainment to people as they stay indoors during the pandemic, the platform said in a statement. Both platforms consist of talented content creators with different content ideas, and an amalgamation of these will only work wonders for the audiences, it added. 

    “Radio City stands for authenticity, creativity, and entertainment in the true sense, and this resonates perfectly with our brand principles,” said Chingari co-founder and CEO, Sumit Ghosh. “Our aim has always been to become the voice of the independent content creators, and this collaboration will be another way of meeting our objective of promoting talent by expanding Chingari’s user base through the broadcasting platform. It will also attract the audience on our platform to interact with the shows on Radio City.

    “At Radio City our main aim is to connect with the masses through music and entertaining content. It was a wonderful experience to partner with Chingari to promote the exceeding demand of digital content,” stated Radio City CEO Ashit Kukian. “We have always been at the forefront of bringing about a positive change in the minds of listeners, society, and nation at large, and this association with Chingari is in line with our ‘Rag Rag Mein Daude City’ brand philosophy.”

    “Having Radio City join hands with us in a partnership is a privilege,” Chingari co-founder and COO, Deepak Salvi. “The two brands have always focused on helping the audience and independent artists in various ways. This collaboration will give the audience unlimited entertainment to relieve them of their stress during the current times, and at the same time they will also get extended exposure and a chance to interact with new faces.”

  • Chingari’s World Music Day concert raises funds for Covid relief

    Mumbai: Homegrown short-video sharing platform, Chingari has been at the forefront of out-of-the-box fun engagements for its users. Recently, the ‘Chingari World Music Day Concert’ under #MusicForACause successfully achieved musical fun while supporting the country in its fight against the pandemic. The event was aimed at offering aid for pandemic relief by donating its entire share of profits.

    Chingari App’s co-founder & CEO Sumit Ghosh said, “Chingari does not believe in being just a run-of-the-mill short-video sharing platform. ‘Chingari World Music Day Concert’ under #MusicForACause was our way to connect with the ever-growing user base and keep them engaged in a manner that they enjoy as well as feel included. The event gave users an opportunity to come together for a good cause. It was all about staying entertained while being safe, being useful, and having a great time under a single roof.”

    Chingari App’s co-founder & COO Deepak Salvi said, “We, at Chingari, are aware of the brutal scars that the pandemic has etched in our hearts permanently. But that shouldn’t stop us from enjoying and being there for each other in such times. People’s tremendous response is proof that they want to enjoy and prefer doing it through music. The huge profit donated to the pandemic relief support has left us smiling and reveals that the Chingari family wears its heart on its sleeve. We look forward to rolling out more such activities in the coming times.”

    The concert saw an exciting line-up of celeb performers – from Salim Merchant, Ved Sharma, Sahil Sharma to Indian Idol Season one finalist Harish Moyal, Abhijit Sawant, and Paroma Dasgupta.

  • Will Indian short-video apps’ monetisation experiments pay off?

    Will Indian short-video apps’ monetisation experiments pay off?

    KOLKATA: The popularity of short snackable videos exploded in India with the advent of TikTok. While it was on the way to be the indisputable leader with top influencers, premium brands, and a growing number of users, geopolitical tension curtailed the dream journey. When several homegrown apps emerged to plug the market gap left by TikTok, many experts had been sceptical about their sustainability.

    However, these apps did not tank – in fact, the ‘Made in India’ apps collectively have managed to capture TikTok’s market share. These platforms have secured 97 per cent of the Chinese app’s users, a recent report from consulting firm ReedSeer suggested. However, the time spent reaching 55 per cent of what it was in June shows there are more opportunities to boost engagement. While many of these apps are raising funds, using the capital to scale up the operations, build robust technology, adding new features, they have started looking at monetisation potentials as well.

    Unleashing brand partnership opportunities

    One of the apps that have emerged as a leading player in the ecosystem is MX TakaTak, the short video arm of MX Player. “For short video platforms, there are a variety of monetisation opportunities available. One is obviously the ad-based model, where we sell inventory to different brands. We are not focusing on that too much at the moment,” MX TakaTak business head Janhavi Parikh said.

    For now, the platform’s primary focus is to work with brands to run branded hashtag challenges to drive engagement. “Although it’s in pretty early stages for us, a lot of brands are interested in doing this. But we are taking things slow. Branded challenges, influencer marketing are big opportunities to grow monetisation,” Parikh added.

    Chingari has also tried out hashtag challenges for brands that are very popular on the platform, co-founder & CEO Sumit Ghosh said. Brands can float a hashtag and then offer money to influencers, creators to create content for the brand. It’s a win-win for the brands and creators as brands pay the latter and the platform amplifies the brand. However, the app is overall not very bullish about direct advertisements as those disrupt the user experience, he noted.

    Another homegrown app Bolo Indya has partnered with brands to do content marketing using live streaming with creators where there could be a product positioning during the live stream or purely working with a brand for brand recall being the primary objective, Bolo Indya CEO and founder Varun Saxena shared.

    Expanding the role of social commerce

    Rather than depending only on advertisers, the apps are also coming up with innovative initiatives. Take for example Chingari – the app that’s dominating the vernacular markets is experimenting with several routes. “We will get into monetisation at a later stage but right now we are just testing certain methods,” Chingari’s Ghosh said.

     “We have recently produced video commerce technology where every video that gets uploaded to Chingari, you will see a shop button on the video, powered by AI & ML. Basically, what we are doing is finding out shoppable objects within the video and comparing with the live catalogue of Amazon and showing what products you can buy from Amazon,” he explained.

    The chosen model will impact revenue as well. For Bolo Indya, it will not be a backend set-up but will be launched under a partnership model with an e-commerce player. MX TakaTak has also been toying with the idea. Lifestyle content focused short video platform Trell also entered this segment at the beginning of this year, partnering with over 500 brands across makeup, personal care, health and wellness categories.

    Building consumer-creator direct engagement

    “I think everybody is trying to innovate revenue model, somebody is trying e-commerce model, somebody is going the advertisement way. Everybody has to find which model suits their product and how to benefit. The good part for us is we have seen a good trend in terms of users spending on the platform, not just time but some money since last quarter,” Mitron TV CEO and co-founder Shivank Agarwal previously said in an interview.

    The app, which recently celebrated its first anniversary, has opened up different monetisation opportunities. One such feature is Mitron Club, Through the Club, creators can churn out engaging content exclusively for users opting for the service. The Club members can also directly connect with creators to request to create content that they would like to watch. Consumers subscribe for Rs 99 per month to become a part of the entire ecosystem of the creator.

    In addition to that, it has unveiled an on-demand service wherein consumers can ask specific help of creators and they can create videos around the queries asked by the audience.

    Direct engagement between consumers and creators to drive monetisation is a key focus for Bolo Indya. On this app, content creators can create online services and post on the platform which are delivered on a real-time interactive basis to audiences through one-to-one, one-to-many live interactions, Bolo Indya’s Saxena said. This could be an astrologer conducting an astrology session with someone or a comic creator doing stand-up comedy show for a group of audiences on a pre-ticker basis. The app takes a platform fee and the rest of the share goes to creators.

    “Our application primarily revolves around the core of enabling the content creators to monetise their content. When we native them to monetise their content on the platform, we see a revenue share out of it,” Saxena stated.

    Another major mode of monetisation for the app is through live streaming. Any creator can go and live stream and people who are watching those live streams can send gifts to those creators. These gifts can be purchased by the audience paying real money on the platform, Saxena said. Whatever the value of the gifts end up being the earning of the content creators and the platform takes a revenue share out of it. Hence, the app highly relies on consumer microtransactions which start from as low as Rs 10 and goes up to Rs 5000.

    Tapping into booming ed-tech opportunities

    Interestingly, some of these platforms are looking at ed-tech as an opportunity to bring in money. Mitron Academy is one such initiative where the creators get an opportunity to share educational videos to help users learn from the platform. It has onboarded a number of experts on different topics.

    Chingari is also working on an edtech offering called ‘Chingari Skill’ which will be launched soon. Thanks to this product, any Chingari user will be able to sell their skills. According to Ghosh, it will leave a lot of scopes for users to create such content in vernacular language as most ed-tech content is either in English or in Hindi. Notably, a large part of Chingari’s user base comes from tier-3 and tier-4 cities.

    Future opportunities

    “We have few other revenue streams in the pipeline which include launching creator rooms where the creator can post social games live learning sessions around fitness, wellness, health etc on the platform for a closed room of the audience creating their own customisation by the platform,” Saxena said.

    While MX TakaTak is already doing live streaming, Parikh seems optimistic that there are a multitude of monetisation opportunities in live streaming over time. The bigger ones could be e-commerce as well as virtual gifting, all of which will be explored in near future.

    How far is profitability?

    As the platforms are trying to build sustainable revenue models, the question of when these models will turn profitable also arises. However, Chingari is not focusing on profitability at the moment and is devoting its energies to distribution, to reach the maximum numbers of users. Ghosh added that it may take two years down the line to become profitable.

    However, Bolo Indya’s Saxena claimed the platform is very close to breaking even at the current scale as well when it comes to the monetisation side. He expects the app to be profitable in the next 12-15 months.

    “If we look towards China, after the first few years, Kuaishou, as well as Douyin, have done phenomenally well because the growth has been so huge. With all of the different monetisation opportunities kicked in, it probably took three-four or even five-six years. If we follow that China model, revenue opportunity is huge and profitability follows definitely,” Parikh commented without revealing any timeline.

  • Chingari focuses on Marathi market with Kadak Entertainment team-up

    Chingari focuses on Marathi market with Kadak Entertainment team-up

    MUMBAI: Popular video-sharing app Chingari has entered into an agreement with Kadak Entertainment in a bid to affirm its presence in the Marathi regional market. 

    Started by two women entrepreneurs Shruti Akshay Munot and Mayoorii Swwapnil Munot, Kadak Entertainment has created three marquee properties and offers content of various topics and genres for the Marathi audience.

    Shruti and Mayoorii are sister-in-laws, and they have been doing pathbreaking work to crush the image that popular culture has painted for this particular relationship. 

    With this new collaboration, Chingari aims to strengthen its regional content library. The short video app has been forging ties that fortify its regional presence and this association with Kadak entertainment too is a step in this direction.

    "Breaking stereotypes and working to our best potential to offer wholesome entertainment to our user base has been a brand philosophy for Chingari. Kadak Entertainment has the same brand values and we see a natural fitment with them and are glad to have them on board," said Chingari App co-founder and CEO Sumit Ghosh. 

    Chingari App COO and co-founder Deepak Salvi said that it is always a pleasure to collaborate with like-minded partners like Kadak Entertainment. 

    "With Kadak Entertainment coming on board we have enhanced our Marathi library even further. At Chingari we have always strived to offer better and greater content to all our users and add to our regional library and we will continue to do that as we go along," he added. 

    Shruti Akshay Munot and Mayoorii Swwapnil Munot said, "We make sure that Chingari users will get more content for entertainment as Kadak Marathi has various plans of content creations and lots of campaigns in association with the app. The fresh content of Kadak Marathi meets the wide reach of Chingari to deliver maximum entertainment to the maximum number! Here’s to a great start and a long-lasting association that brings out the best for our audience."