Koo a microblogging social media app that was launched 16months ago in March 2020 by a Bengaluru-based start-up which is the best alternative to Twitter for Indian users. With 10 million users to narrow the gap with the US microblogging site after its repeated clashes with the government over the past few months.
Koo app allows the Indian users to do discussions on this site similar to those on Twitter in English and seven languages such as Hindi and Kannada. Since February, about 85% of users have joined the Koo app. Ministers, opposition politicians, cricket stars, and Bollywood celebrities have since begun posting in Indian languages on Koo when Twitter disputes with PM Modi.
This month after appointing new India-based executives, including one to handle compliance. San Francisco rival, having 17.5 million monthly users earlier this year in India, complied with the new government rules.
Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder, and chief executive officer of the Bangalore-headquartered app whose formal name is Bombinate Technologies Pvt said, “We came into the limelight because of Twitter’s tension with the government, but users soon realized they can express themselves in their mother tongue only on Koo. Our app connects English-speaking India to non-English speaking India in a country with 700 million internet users and that’s powerful.”
A repeated clash with the Indian government has been marked by the American social media network over the content. Hundreds of tweets of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis were removed by Twitter, labelling posts by ruling party officials as misleading. With the country’s new information technology rules, a court ruled the company was in “total non-compliance”.
Twitter told the court that “it will fully comply with the rules. That included naming an India-based point person for handling compliance and grievance issues.”
Koo is targeting 100 million users in a year. “The startup plans to expand in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe, into countries where English is not the dominant language,” said co-founder, and chief executive officer Mr Radhakrishna.
“An Indian social media startup is taking on a global giant and has a very good chance of winning,” Radhakrishna added.
