iWorld
Twitter makes first acquisition in India with Zip Dial
MUMBAI: Twitter India has acquired the Indian marketing start up Zip Dial, in order to make the micro blogging site more accessible to people in India and around the world. This is Twitter’s first acquisition in India and is pegged close to $30-$35 million. ZipDial was co-founded by Valerie Wagoner, Amiya Pathak and Sanjay Swamy.
Making the announcement on the micro-blogging site, Twitter India and Southeast Asia market director Rishi Jaitly said, “On behalf of our India operations, I’m delighted to welcome Zip Dial’s leadership, employees and a new office in Bangalore to the spirited team that is Twitter India.”
With the new deal in the kitty, Jaitly added that their primary mission was to reach out to every Indian with a mobile device in order to facilitate a relevant Twitter experience. “We believe Twitter – a platform invented for SMS and rich in media – is a perfect match for India, a mobile-first country with a celebrated media heritage,” he said.
Twitter and Zip Dial already have a history of getting content to Indians. In recent times Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth have partnered with Twitter and Zip Dial to allow users to follow these celebrities by making a toll-free “missed call” to a designated phone number. Callers then started receiving inbound content on their phone in real time through voice, SMS or an app notification.
During last year’s general elections, the two national political parties, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) worked in tandem with both the partners to make their accounts accessible to all users in India on any phone, on any network and in any language.
Jaitly concluded by saying that with the Cricket World Cup around the corner and more Indian icons joining the platform every day, 2015 promises to be another big year for Twitter in India.
iWorld
Banijay Asia’s The 50 tops OTT charts with 8.1 million JioHotstar views
Reality competition becomes most watched show on JioHotstar in debut week.
MUMBAI: Fifty contestants walked into a palace, but millions of viewers showed up for the drama. Reality competition The 50, produced by Banijay Asia, has emerged as the most watched show on JioHotstar, clocking 8.1 million views in its debut week. The figure, reported by Ormax Media, places the show at the top of the OTT viewership charts and marks a strong opening for the digital reality format.
Adapted from a popular French format, The 50 brings together 50 personalities from television, digital platforms, music and reality shows inside a grand palace setting. Over the course of a 50 day competition, participants form alliances, compete in unpredictable tasks and navigate eliminations as the field steadily narrows.
Guiding the game is a mysterious figure known as The Lion, an unseen game master whose voice introduces twists, challenges and strategic turns throughout the show, adding an extra layer of suspense to the contest.
What distinguishes The 50 from typical reality competitions is its audience driven prize structure. Instead of the winner taking home the final reward, the prize is awarded to one of the winner’s registered followers through the show’s dedicated app. The mechanism effectively turns viewers into participants, allowing fans to have a direct stake in the outcome.
The contestant lineup features a mix of television actors, reality stars and digital creators, including Karan Patel, Urvashi Dholakia, Divya Agarwal, Mr Faisu and Dushyant Kukreja, each bringing their own fan following to the show.
With its blend of celebrity personalities, strategic gameplay and interactive viewer participation, The 50 has quickly carved out a strong foothold in India’s digital entertainment landscape. Its 8.1 million views in the opening week underline the growing appetite for large scale reality formats designed specifically for OTT audiences.
