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Shekhar Kapur and AR Rahman launch social media platform
MUMBAI: Shekhar Kapur and AR Rahman have teamed up to launch social media platform Qyuki Digital Media, which has Cisco as a key investor.
The platform aims to discover the vast untapped talent of India and the Indian diaspora, mentor them, and turn them into brands of the future. It will offer co-creation opportunities, collaboration, recognition and a creative marketplace to the consumers.
Qyuki will help the youth to experience and co-create differentiated content with the experts and be inspired by the ‘Masters‘ creations.
Qyuki co-founder Shekhar Kapur said, "At Qyuki, we are creating a world of opportunity, where it doesn’t matter where you come from, but what matters is your creativity and the meaning one can derive from it. It’s a world where people can learn from established domain experts, showcase their creativity and connect with like-minded people. Ultimately, they have the potential to become the brands of the future. This is a hub where I will create compelling content experiences such as Warlord and Animalocity."
Qyuki co-founder AR Rahman said, “Qyuki will help you creatively explore yourself, open the window for creativity that exists in all corners of India and is a first step to trigger the imagination of Indian minds. Qyuki would be active and focussed in driving creative expression of all art forms. The platform will emerge as a strong medium that will enable Indian youth to follow their creative instinct. Melange, premiered at Qyuki, is content created by young musicians at K M Music Conservatory which showcases the potential of creativity in India.”
Qyuki’s technology platform has been developed in-house to bring to the consumer a unique multi-modal experience deployed on Cisco’s state-of-the-art datacentre technology. The entire Qyuki platform is built on Cisco’s cloud infrastructure.
Hilton Romanski, Vice President, Head of Corporate Business Development, Cisco said, “Cisco has a long track record of driving IT market growth through investments. We have invested in Qyuki to co-create a technology platform that enables conceptualization of creative content, contextualising it and delivering it through mobile devices and cloud. With Cisco, Qyuki has the capability to build an online human network in India.”
Qyuki will enable brands to leverage the creative community in many different ways. It will allow brands to reach out to a targeted community, interacting with content and co-create brand communication with them, directly or through online and mobile advertising. It also provides them with a chance to gauge the emotional pulse of the consumer or associate with specific genre of creativity.
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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.
