iWorld
ShemarooMe Box Office courts southern audiences with Varmaa
KOLKATA: Homegrown OTT platform ShemarooMe Box Office is now venturing into the regional space with Varmaa, the Tamil remake of Telugu blockbuster Arjun Reddy.
Varmaa is helmed by the national award-winning director Bala and features Tamil superstar Chiyaan Vikram’s son Dhruv in the titular role. The movie, seen as the master filmmaker’s intense take on romance, is available to audiences on pay per view.
The brand recently launched its TVoD service, better known as pay per view, for regional audiences and is attempting to break the language barrier when it comes to entertaining cinema lovers.
Varmaa can be watched on ShemarooMe Box Office by subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Fans can log on to the ShemarooMe website or BookMyShow and purchase a ticket, priced at Rs 140, and tune into the movie online. The ticket allows families to enjoy the film over and over again for three days.
Varmaa is a direct-to-OTT release. While both the original Arjun Reddy and its Bollywood adaptation Kabir Singh starring Shahid Kapoor made bank at the box office, they were called out for glorifying misogyny and abuse.
Critics dubbed Varmaa a faithful adaptation of its source material, while also mentioning that Bala has added his own little twists in some aspects of the characters and story.
iWorld
X launches XChat messaging app on iOS with calls and encryption
Standalone app marks shift from “everything app” vision, adds E2E messaging.
MUMBAI: From one big app to many small chats, X seems to be splitting its ambitions. X has rolled out its standalone messaging app, XChat, to iOS users, opening up a new front in its evolving product strategy. The app allows users to connect with existing X contacts through private and group messages, file sharing, as well as audio and video calls. The launch follows a limited beta phase, where the platform tested the product with a smaller user base to refine the experience. Now available publicly, XChat marks a notable pivot from earlier ambitions championed by Elon Musk to turn X into a single “everything app” combining messaging, payments, commerce and more.
Instead, the company under xAI ownership and backed by SpaceX appears to be building a suite of standalone applications, each targeting specific use cases while expanding its broader ecosystem.
At launch, XChat includes end-to-end encrypted messaging, PIN-based access, disappearing messages, and features such as message editing, deletion for all participants, and screenshot blocking. The company has also said the app is free from advertisements and tracking mechanisms, positioning it as a privacy-first alternative in a crowded messaging space.
However, security claims around the platform are likely to face scrutiny. Earlier iterations of XChat drew criticism from experts who argued it fell short of established encrypted platforms like Signal. With the wider rollout, the app is expected to undergo fresh evaluation to assess whether those concerns have been addressed.
Beyond messaging, XChat will also house X’s Communities feature, which is being discontinued on the main platform due to low usage and spam concerns. Migrating these users could provide an early boost to adoption, effectively turning XChat into both a communication and community hub.
The move underscores a broader recalibration at X less about cramming everything into one app, and more about spreading bets across multiple touchpoints, one message at a time.
