iWorld
ZEE5 India bolsters product & tech team through key appointments
MUMBAI: ZEE5, today announced key appointments in their product and technology team. As part of the strategy to further drive the next stage of growth and innovation, ZEE5 has onboarded Anjul Sachan as Adtech chief architect, Manit Kathuria as user experience head, Prateek Pant as video engineering head and Mandar Deodhar as technology (payments) director.
Sachan, a graduate from IIT Bombay, will be leading the AdTech architects team at ZEE5. He will be responsible for the R&D as well as technical execution of all AdTech projects including adserver, self-serve, and optimization engine among others. He brings with him a rich experience in building and managing ad recommendations, content feed personalization, and a self-service portal for advertisers and publishers. In his previous avatar, Anjul has led AdTech growth strategies and product roadmap for Times Internet Limited Adtech division, while working on some solutions for ad platforms, data forecasting, audience data management, ad-blocker, ad-fraud identification, and so on.
Kathuria brings over 14 years of design experience with him. In his new role, he will lead the CX experience from a product perspective. His key focus involves solving consumer problems across platforms effectively and quickly; building a seamless experience for both AVOD and SVOD users. He will lead the product design team to achieve these goals at ZEE5. An alumnus of the University of Washington in Seattle, he has also been instrumental in building companies such as Rooja.com, Exclusively.com and Prophesee during his early days in the fashion and SAAS space. He has formerly worked as design and UX head of for companies like Snapdeal, Fabhotels among others. Before joining ZEE5, he was a part of Magicbricks as user experience head
Pant, with an experience of over 18 years in technical leadership experience in video technologies has led the design and development of several multimedia CE products and OTT platforms. In his new role at ZEE5, he will be handling end to end video engineering from transcoding, encoding, CDN, and all player playability across platforms and will also be focussed on video pipelines for meta generation. He is passionate about IoT, video inferencing using AI/ML, AR/VR and cloud computing. Prior to this, he has worked with leading firms like Astro, Technicolor, Cisco, Maxim Integrated, Samsung Electronics, and DRDO.
Deodhar joins as technology director. He will be responsible for end to end technology requirements for subscription, payments, and all third-party integrations. Mandar is an IIT Bombay alumni from MTech 2005 batch and has worked in different companies like Indiagames, Disney, Citrus Payments, Hotstar and HERE Maps
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.
