BENGALURU: Homegrown microblogging platform Koo, which recently clocked 50 million downloads, says users can freely connect with each other and enable their right to speech on the platform.
As Elon Musk announced they will charge $8 for blue tick, Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder and CEO of Koo, said, “It’s absolutely free (on Koo).”
At the Global Tech Advocates (GTA) event held recently in Bengaluru, Radhakrishna said, “English speaking India can talk to Kannada, Tamil and Hindi folks in their languages, and we want to be an alternative to Twitter globally.” Koo enables users to get a green self-verified tick using the Aadhaar card via a third-party vendor. The platform has introduced many new features including the ability to edit Koo posts, securing a yellow tick, and voluntary self-verification process.
“We have over 7,500 eminent personalities that use the platform in short span of 2.5 years of our existence. Given the changes happening at the global level in the social media landscape, we feel there is a good opportunity for us to make Koo available to the larger English-speaking audience as well,” Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder, Koo told TNIE.
“As we grow, we will continue to expand our languages and geographies to ensure that native language-speaking users across the globe can engage in meaningful conversations on Koo app,” he added. When asked about monetising the verification badge, he said they believe there are multiple ways to monetise, but steps taken for user transparency shouldn’t be a part of it.
The objective of such verification processes is to bring authenticity, let users freely connect with each other, and enable their right to speech with the assurance that they are engaging with a genuine voice, the co-founder said. “In the situation where Twitter users will be charged for features, we continue to provide it for free because we believe users should not be charged for basic rights like proving their identity on the internet,” he added.