The social media platform Koo, which was launched as India’s Twitter (now X) alternative, will shut down soon. The decision came after failed partnership talks with multiple Indian firms. The company finds it hard to sustain itself in the competing market due to the increasing costs of keeping the tech service running.
Indian social media platform Koo to shut down soon
Koo’s Co-Founder Mayank Bidawatka and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna took to LinkedIn to reveal the update for their product Koo, the social media platform that was said to take on Elon Musk’s X. They said that Koo will be discontinued soon, mainly because of the higher costs of running, which they expected to be taken care of with merger rounds. However, recent partnership talks fell through and things didn’t work out.
“While we would’ve liked to keep the app running, the cost of technology services to keep a social media app running is high and we’ve had to take this tough decision.”
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Further, they emphasised the need for Koo in markets where most global products are dominated by Americans.
“Koo has been built with a lot of heart. We saw a big gap between the languages the world speaks and the fact that most social products, especially X/Twitter in India are English dominant. In a world where 80 percent of the population speaks a language other than English, this is a strong need. We wanted to democratize expression and enable a better way to connect people in their local languages. Most global products are dominated by Americans. We believe that India should have a place at the table.”
Koo was launched back in 2020 in India amid the spat between X and the Indian government. The platform was made available in multiple local languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Assamese.
In 2022, the social media platform was launched in Brazil, where it was able to get over 1 million users soon after its release in the region. However, the platform appears to have struggled to keep up with the increasing competition and to manage the costs to run the service.
While the platform is biting the dust, the exact timeline for the discontinuation of its service hasn’t been revealed. But if you are a Koo user, you’ll have to find a new social media app to post your thoughts and updates.
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