iWorld
Prime Video’s mega entertainment line-up for Prime Day 2023 receives a blockbuster response globally!
Mumbai: Prime Video’s mega entertainment line-up for Prime Day 2023 India, scheduled on 15 & 16 July, has enthralled customers within and outside India. The service launched exciting originals, movies and shows as part of Prime Day 2023 celebrations, and Prime members from 4,490 cities and towns in India streamed these special Prime Day releases. Not just this, Prime Video continued to raise the bar in giving a global platform to Indian stories, and the Indian titles released as a part of this year’s Prime Day line-up were watched by viewers in over 230 countries and territories.
Prime Video released 12 movies and shows in the 30 days leading up to Prime Day 2023. Eight of those titles featured in the top ten most watched titles on Prime Video India in that period. All the titles released on Prime Video as a part of the Prime Day line-up saw great customer response across the length and breadth of the country, receiving viewership from 99 per cent of India’s pin codes. Additionally, Prime Video continued to expand access to global entertainment for its customers. Not just the Indian titles, but even the international shows and movies released during Prime Day 2023 were streamed by customers in 97 per cent of India’s pin codes.
Prime Video’s Prime Day 2023 India line-up included a diverse range of shows and movies, from the original horror series Adhura (Hindi) and final season of the global hit series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, to the superhero film Veeran (Tamil) and family entertainer Anni Manchi Sakunamule (Telugu). Customers enjoyed the Tamannaah Bhatia-starrer Jee Karda (Hindi) – an original series that beautifully explores the complexities of love and friendship, and the original movie Tiku Weds Sheru (Hindi) – a dramedy about two eccentric, starry-eyed characters who want to make it big in Bollywood, in addition to the Hindi version of the massive global blockbuster Ponniyin Selvan: II. The celebrations didn’t just end with these titles, as customers were further delighted by Sweet Kaaram Coffee (Tamil) – an original series that beautifully encapsulates an unforgettable journey of three women from different generations rekindling their love for life, and Hostel Days, a Telugu adaptation of the hit Young Adult comedy drama series. This was in addition to the second season of the hit original series The Summer I Turned Pretty, the acclaimed film Babylon, and action thriller Kandahar.
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.
