iWorld
T-Series beats PewDiePie to become world’s top YouTube channel
MUMBAI: After a heavy battle of several months, music label and production house T-Series has finally overtaken PewDiePie to become the top YouTube channel. T-Series now has 90.52 million subscribers, a little above the Swedish YouTuber’s 90.49 million. For the last six years, PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg has been the most subscribed YouTube channel. It was around six months ago that the threat from T-Series started to become imminent, leading to a massive anti-T-Series campaign from his followers. A few days ago, T-Series chairman Bhushan Kumar had tweeted an appeal to Indian viewers to increase its subscriber count.
India’s telecom revolution enabled T-Series to jump from 30 million subscribers at the start of 2018 to where it has reached now.
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.
