iWorld
Twitter India country director Taranjeet Singh steps down
MUMBAI: After a four-year stint with Twitter India, country director Taranjeet Singh has stepped down from his role. He was one of the earliest Twitter employees in the country. The company’s Twitter’s global head of revenue strategy and operations Balaji Krish has been named as the interim country head until the replacement of Singh is hired.
“India is one of our largest and fastest growing markets worldwide today. We have hired many Tweeps at Twitter India, diversified our client base across the country and continue to be the pulse of Indian society – breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics,” Singh tweeted.
As Indian country director, he built the up the sales team from the ground up and led the social media giant’s expansion and investments. He worked closely with brands and agencies to increase their commercial opportunities and leading overall Twitter operations in India. Twitter compared to its competitors like Facebook, has not been dragged into in any major controversy yet.
The media veteran has 20 years of sales and business development experience. He also spent close to a decade with BBC as head of advertising and sales director of South Asia.
“I’m proud to say that Twitter India is in a strong position and will continue to grow stronger in the years to come. I want to thank all our partners, brands and agencies for their continued belief, trust and support in making my journey so incredible at Twitter,” he tweeted.
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.
