Highlights
- On Monday, Koo reported that it has received a moving response from users in Brazil as it logged over 1 million downloads within 48 hours of launch in that market.
- In 2021, when the Indian government was at odds with Twitter over blocking ‘provocative’ accounts on the platform, Union ministers like Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, along with several ministries, moved to the rival app.
- It allows the users to create posts, known as Koo, in 400 characters – a substitute for tweets.
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the social media giant has been ridden with one controversy after another, mainly owing to massive layoffs and eccentric management decisions.
But amidst all this hullabaloo, an Indian social media platform, Koo, seems to be taking giant strides by building upon the recognition it has started getting in the recent past.
1 Million downloads within 48 hours in Brazil
On Monday, Koo reported that it has received a moving response from users in Brazil as it logged over 1 million downloads within 48 hours of launch in that market.
“India’s multilingual microblogging platform, Koo App, was launched in Brazil with the addition of the Portuguese language, making it available in 11 native languages now,” the microblogging site said in a statement.
Within 48 hours of launch, the platform received a “tremendous response” from Brazil users with over 1 million user downloads, Koo further said.
The ‘Aatmanirbhar’ app started in 2020
The multilingual app, which bagged the top spot at the government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat app challenge in 2020, has been making headlines since last year. The social media start-up has been noticed for its Twitter-like experience but has an edge as it offers the option of using multiple local languages.
In 2021, when the Indian government was at odds with Twitter over blocking ‘provocative’ accounts on the platform, Union ministers like Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal, along with several ministries, moved to the rival app.
Workings of the homegrown app
Broadly, Koo is a similar app from a different corporation because the app, available for Android and iOS users, has a somewhat similar interface to the US-based app Twitter.
It allows the users to create posts, known as Koo, in 400 characters – a substitute for tweets. Like Twitter’s trending topics, it has a trending hashtag section, and people can even send direct messages to other users.
However, an array of features on Koo are distinct and make it stand apart from Twitter. The significant difference is that it offers support for local languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and Kannada and is in the process of including more Indic languages, including Punjabi, Bangla, Oriya, Malayalam and Assamese. It also has a 400-character limit which is way more than that of Twitter (280 characters).
Also, the feed on Koo is disparate in its workings – as it has been laid out in two sections: feed and people. While the first displays the posts on the platform, the latter shows the users followed or relevant suggestions.
Posts on Koo appear chronologically in contrast to Twitter – where the posts are positioned based on engagement. The homegrown platform has a simple login process too. It only needs a mobile number and an OTP to log in, whereas Twitter has always used the traditional system involving an email id and password.
