Applications
Rediff launches iShare, ties up with Zee’s ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’
NEW DELHI: Move over YouTube and Orkut. The indigenous iShare is here with claims of doing more than either of them. And to mark its launch, the IT platform announced a deal wherein those who failed to make it to the Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa musical talent show on Zee TV can post their videos or audios on iShare and stand the chance of getting chosen to perform in the finals. Zee TV marketing head Tarun Mehra said one of the five short-listed entries will be selected to become the ‘Voice of Rediff’ and get to perform in the finals. He said that the show was the world’s first Indian music contest (‘Sangeet ka pratham vishwa-yudh’) and a platform like iShare would help aspirants from all continents to take part and be part of the contest. Earlier, Rediff.com CEO Ajit Balakrishnan told a press meet here that the principal aim of iShare was to link the 53 million Indians worldwide outside India with those within the country. Rediff.com vice president marketing Manish Agarwal said the multimedia social content sharing platform will allow users to share videos, music, pictures on a single platform. He said the platform would be ‘a catalyst for Indians to share and connect’, sharing the joy of a digital lifestyle. He claimed that what might have proved to be a technological complexity had been turned into product simplicity by the software developers at Rediff.Com. With multimedia entertainment on the Internet expected to be one of the fastest growing segments online, the launch of iShare is part of a strategy by Rediff.Com to give a complete online offering for videos, audio files and pictures, and unlimited storage facility. The iShare platform comes with an easy to use utility tool, which users can install on their personal computers and upload multiple files even at low-speed without having to worry about the source of the file. Users will be able to upload pictures and videos made in mobile phones, digicam, digital camcorder and music from mp3 players like ipods. Agarwal said that another advantage was that iShare supported recordings in any format – mpeg, wmi and so on – and could convert them into ‘flash’ format. He admitted that the aim would also be to build the platform into a business opportunity and there will be commercial advertisements as well.
Perhaps in the light of the problems that both YouTube and Orkut have run into, iShare has provision for reporting abuse, and a person who is logged on can object to any content by simply clicking on a key for reporting abuse.
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.
