Applications
Online ad revenue stunted due to lack of standardised measurement system
MUMBAI: Online advertising revenue has stayed stunted due to the lack of a standardised measurement system for the Internet, speakers at the WatSummit said.
Vdopia vice president Debadutta Upadhyaya said there is no agreement on how many online users there are in India. Some say 35 million while others put it at 75 million. An inflection point will be reached when there are 120 million users. She also said that the concept of ROI needs to be redefined.
The panel, which included UTV business head Sameer Pitalwalla, Communicate 2 founder and MD Vivek Bhargava and Nielsen director online division Karthik Nagaranjan, felt that the advent of 3G will lead to ads becoming immersive.
Ad formats will improve and this will grow revenue as video is something that clients understand. At the same time if CMOs of the top companies were to be educated on how digital works, then it would make a difference.
It was pointed that unless entertainment content is specifically created for the net, viewers will not hook on to it. The expectation is that over the next few years, a lot of entrepreneurial talent will come in to develop content for the Internet. The concept of entertainment will become broad to include applications like one that tells you how to run a marathon better.
After this panel discussion Undercover Productions founder and CEO Abhigyan Jha made a presentation on Jai Hind TV which is an online GEC channel. He noted that we are moving from the age of information to the age of imagination. The gap between the consumer and producer has shortened. It took the site 15 days to get half a million views. Twitter, he noted, was the first age of imagination company.
Strategies that have worked in the past will need to change. One of the learnings of Jai Hind TV is that consumers will go the online route if the content offered is unique.
“Users crave for content not available anywhere else. Our aim was to take content directly to users and bypass a channel,” said Jha.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
