iWorld
YouTube fanfest returns to India for 3rd edition
MUMBAI: Youtube Fanfest is back in India for a third time and how! On its third edition now, the mega celebration boasts of a 30 artists line up of digital artists and content creators, who will take centre stage on 18 March 2016 in Mumbai. The show will be co-produced by Only Much Louder and Branded, and has Pepsi, Pantene, Amazon.in and Clean and Clear as sponsors, with Pepsi coming onbaord for the second time. Star acts include SuperWoman aka Lilly Singh, Kanan Gill, Connor Franta, SANAM, TVF and AIB
Sharing his excitement over the fest, YouTube India head of entertainment and content Satya Raghavan said, “India has undergone a content creator revolution. Over the last few years, Indian YouTube creators have gained millions of new subscribers and have taken over the imagination of the youth in India. In our view, 2015 was a breakout year for the young industry and the ecosystem has really evolved in India, with mobile driving massive growth for online video consumption. Now, we’re seeing online creators break open the gates for a whole new kind of entertainment for Indians online, with advertisers looking to tap into this space in a meaningful way.”
While the idea is to reach out to maximum number of people and inspire them to not only celebrate the existing content creators, but join the community as well. YouTube is banking on organic promotion of the show through artists and their subscribers. “It is largely organic. Several thousands of content creators put out videos on their channels, and they have their millions of subscribers, who themselves have their own social media platforms to put the word across. We don’t think we need any more marketing,” said Raghavan.
About the booming digital content industry and the mushrooming of OTT players across the board Ragahavan said, “I think it’s great that more people are doing things around video. It will only expand the pie. Especially with bandwidth opening up in the country hopefully thanks to the several 4G services. It is an exciting time for content creators and video content consumers to be in India.”
Making the most of the platform, Culture Machine, OML, Qyuki, and The Viral Fever (TVF) also announced four new original properties on YouTube. Firstly #LaughterGames, where nine comedy creators will launch their own comedy web series, featuring YouTube comedians such as East India Comedy, Put Chutney and Kenny Sebastian. Qyuki will launch Jamminin’, a show featuring Bollywood composers and YouTube music creators. In the coming months, Culture Machine will be launching Beauty Hunt, a beauty/style-centric program, while OML will launch season 2 of its successful Comedy Hunt, the search for India’s next comedy act, while veteran web show creators TVF will be launching a search for the next generation of web series creators. A Tamil Comedy Hunt with Vision Time, a Telugu Comedy Hunt with ETV, and Katha, a Tamil/Telugu web series property are some of the launches that can be expected from south India later in the year.
To reflect on YouTube’s growth in India Raghavan shared some data: “While overall watchtime in India has grown by 80 per cent YoY (with 55 per cent of that watchtime on mobile) and the hours of video uploaded from India has increased at 90 per cent YoY, content uploaded by India’s independent creators has risen especially quickly. For instance, watchtime of independent musicians grew over 92 per cent YoY; comedy and entertainment grew 100 per cent YoY; beauty and fashion videos have grown over 138 per cent YoY. Another notable area of watchtime growth came from the south, with Tamil and Telugu content seeing a 75 per cent spike in YoY growth.
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.
