iWorld
Planetcast expands online content streaming services acquiring Switch Media OTT, Australia
Mumbai: Planetcast Media Services, a media technology services provider in India and Southeast Asia, has announced the acquisition of one of its key partners, Switch Media, a white-label OTT platform provider deployed across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the US. The transaction, which has been finalised, will transfer full control of all Switch Media’s assets to Planetcast.
Founded in 2006, the Australian headquartered Switch Media has innovated and delivered complex, multi-award-winning online streaming solutions, from ingest to delivery, for major brands and live events worldwide, including the Summer and Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Formula 1 for customers such as Foxtel Australia and Media Prima Malaysia. Switch Media is already a strategic partner of Planetcast and has been providing cutting-edge OTT solutions to the company. The acquisition enables Planetcast to fully integrate Switch Media’s online video solutions with Planetcast’s unified platform, NexC and ensure that Switch Media’s OTT product roadmap is perfectly aligned with Planetcast’s customer requirements.
“Switch Media is the perfect acquisition for Planetcast’s NexC platform, providing us with proven world-class OTT capabilities that are a vital cornerstone of our media services and solutions portfolio and one that will help us build out our international expansion strategy,” said Planetcast’s CEO Sanjay Duda. “Battle-tested across varied customer segments such as Pay TV Operators, broadcasters and Telcos, Switch Media’s OTT platform has successfully hosted some of the most sensitive global sports and entertainment properties. We welcome the Switch Media team to the Planetcast family. We are looking forward to more tightly integrating its feature-rich OTT solutions with NexC, our cloud-first unified-service platform, to ensure that our customers can streamline content operations and drive monetisation.”
Commenting on its plans for Planetcast, Apollo Global head of India private equity Utsav Baijal said: “Because Planetcast adds significant value to its Indian and Asian customers, we are actively looking for such synergistic cross-border, global transactions such as Switch Media as the most effective way to build their international footprint and capability set.”
Developed over almost two decades, Switch Media’s modular and flexible solutions meet the media and entertainment industry’s changing requirements, through a versatile workflow engine that enables customers to ingest, manage, deliver, monetise, and analyse online video. The result is exceptional online content for viewers and a flexible suite of capabilities enabling customers to drive OTT monetisation.
Switch Media’s CEO, Mark Johns said of the acquisition: “Our journey with Planetcast promises to open up new markets and broaden our customer-base. The integration with Planetcast’s NexC platform will unlock tremendous value for Switch Media’s customers seeking to better leverage their content. Additionally, Planetcast’s large support infrastructure will further enhance agility and availability of support to Switch customers.”
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.
