iWorld
Subramaniam is Prime interim head as Amazon seeks new leader
MUMBAI: Amazon Prime Video India director – content Vijay Subramaniam has been appointed as the interim head till the time a suitable replacement is found for Prime India head Nitesh Kripalani who quit two days ago. Kripalani will however remain on the rolls of Amazon India till November.
“We are looking to fill this position. In the interim, Subramaniam has stepped in,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Subramaniam, who has over 20 years of experience in television, radio and print, also worked with Disney, Turner, Magna and Star. He quitt Disney Media Networks in April 2017, and joined Prime shortly later. Before joining Disney, Subramaniam was with MTV India as the advertising sales director, responsible for delivering revenue objectives for MTV.
While free Youtube, which makes money with ads, is successful in India, Prime Video is among the first SVoDs which is succeeding owing to scale.
Also Read:
Amazon Prime country head Nitesh Kripalani quits
Amazon Prime plans to add more originals & evaluating regional content
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.
