iWorld
Truecaller partners Integrated Media Tech to boost ads in tier-2 India
Reseller tie-up targets regional brands with high-impact formats on Truecaller’s platform.
MUMBAI: Truecaller just handed its ad business a desi wingman because when tier-2 brands want to crash the party, they need someone who knows every street in Bharat. Truecaller has entered a strategic reseller partnership with Integrated Media Tech Pvt. Ltd. (a Srishti Media Group company) to accelerate monetisation and scale its advertising ecosystem across India, with a sharp focus on tier-2 markets. The collaboration, announced on 24 February 2026, aims to make Truecaller Ads more accessible to regional and mid-market advertisers who want relevant, contextual, data-driven messaging delivered inside the app’s high-attention, trusted environment.
Integrated Media Tech will leverage its deep advertiser relationships, on-ground execution strength, and market expertise to help brands tap Truecaller’s native ad placements reaching users at key moments of communication. The partnership strengthens Truecaller’s push to grow its global ad business through strong local alliances.
Truecaller Ad Business vice president & global head Hemant Arora said, “As Truecaller Ads continues to evolve into an intelligent, intent-driven engagement platform for brands, expanding our advertising footprint across India remains a key strategic priority. Partnering with Integrated Media Tech enables us to deepen our engagement with advertisers through a team that brings strong market understanding and execution capabilities.”
Integrated Media Tech Pvt. Ltd. founder & CEO Mandeep Malhotra added, “Truecaller’s ad formats provide brands with a powerful opportunity to engage audiences within a credible and high-attention environment. We are pleased to partner with Truecaller to extend these capabilities to advertisers across India.”
The tie-up aligns with Truecaller’s strategy of building localised partnerships to deliver direct, measurable value for advertisers while fuelling sustainable growth in its ad business. In a market where regional brands are hungry for scale and trust, this collaboration could turn Truecaller’s caller ID into a powerful, intent-rich advertising channel, one ring at a time.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
