iWorld
Social media platform Khul Ke rolls out its maiden campaign
Mumbai: Social media platform Khul Ke, launched by Loktantra Mediatech, has rolled out its first campaign “Naya Daur – What’s Next, India?” to commemorate India’s glorious run to its 75th Independence Day on 15 August this year.
Khul Ke is a one-of-a-kind platform that has been launched to empower the audience to have more informed and meaningful conversations. It is the only social media platform that allows video, audio, and text-based conversations and gives audiences a 360 experience.
In the past 75 years, India has completely transformed its image through many extraordinary achievements. From a nation that carried parts of a rocket on a bicycle to a nation that sent a satellite to Mars. From a nation of snake charmers to a major IT service exporting country. From a group of princely states to the world’s largest democracy. From a nation suffering from epidemics to a nation that conducted 25 million vaccinations on a single day. India has come a long way. Naya Daur embodies the current phase where India knows how to play the game of diplomacy, mesmerise the global audience with its music, art, and cinema, and has made strides with its technological innovations. The tagline “What’s next, India?” captures the sentiment of a nation hungry for growth, development, and innovations to change the course of humanity.
India is a nation now racing towards 100 years of Independence. While the campaign honours and celebrates its achievements after independence, it also questions what’s in store for the country and the people in the next 25 years. As a part of the campaign, Khul Ke will host various ‘RoundTables’ and discussion forums on India’s politics, sports, cinema, art & culture, science and technology, and business & economy with known experts from the respective fields.
Additionally, as part of the rollout, the company has launched a campaign film in the voice of a renowned actor, singer, and lyricist Piyush Mishra. The animation film traces India’s remarkable achievements since Independence and speaks about hope, as the nation is on the brink of a new dawn. The campaign will be rolled out across social media platforms, theatres, and radio stations.
Speaking about the platform’s first campaign roll out, Loktantra Mediatech director & chief executive officer Piyush Kulshreshtha said, “Khul Ke is a conversations platform. Users can hold conversations freely in audio and video formats on topics of their own interests. As compared to the existing social media platforms, it is our strong belief that conversation will create possibilities and SM platforms of future will be based on conversations”
He further added, “Khul Ke is at the moment in its test-phase. We are testing the platform for performance and security. While doing so, we needed to hold regular conversations, and were exploring a positive agenda. With the 75th Independence Day coming up, our team decided to experiment with the idea of holding conversations around the last 75 years and future 25 years. It gives us an opportunity to experiment with a variety of content, depth of conversation, quality of moderators and panellists, and interests of the audience. Considering we are still in test-phase and nobody knows about the platform, the topics, the moderators, the panellists and the amount of time the audience spends in such conversations tells us that we are in the right direction. We will continue to bring variety & quality of content through interesting moderators and panellists for an audience that likes to get to the depth and make sense of things they like to discuss. We are sure India will like our format and will join the platform soon.”
Khul Ke chief marketing officer Manish Agarvwal shared, “Our campaign ‘Naya Daur – What next, India?’ reaches out to people across age-groups and walks of life who want to either opine or listen to what industry leaders must share. The objective is to celebrate the landmark moments not just on one day in August but to relive past achievements and take time to prepare for the coming years. The campaign has been rolled out across theatre, radio, digital and social media platforms to create awareness about the platform.”
Conversation can lead to endless possibilities, but the existing clutter of social media platforms currently does not encourage or enable users to explore this power. ‘Khul Ke’ harnessed this thought and gave people the opportunity to engage in uninhibited enriching conversations and increase their circle of influence rather than just be mute spectators. Khul Ke is available on both Appstore and playstore and will also be available on the web www.khulke.com.
iWorld
Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
