Just like Twitter, Koo users can write short blogs and categorize posts with hashtags.
Amid the ongoing Twitter drama, the microblogging site’s Indian alternative – Koo – proved to be a hit in Brazil and garnered over one million downloads within 48 hours of its launch in the country. The homegrown platform was launched in the Portuguese language, making it now available in 11 native languages.
“We are very happy to see the kind of love and support Brazil has shown us. It’s great to be the top app in both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in Brazil within 48 hours of being known in the country,” Koo’s chief executive officer and co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said. “This support is a testimony that we are solving a problem for native language-speaking users not only in India, but across the world.
Singer Claudia Leitte, actor Babu Santana, author Rosana Hermann, and news outlet Choquei are some renowned names that have joined Koo. Brazilian Youtuber and actor Felipe Neto is now one of the most followed users with over 538K followers on the platform.
“With a blockbuster entry of an open platform for self-expression in languages, Koo has recently witnessed 2 million Koos and 10 million likes within 48 hours, by users in Brazil alone,” the Indian company said in a statement.
Co-founded by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka and launched during the coronavirus pandemic, Koo is a multilingual microblogging platform that caters to an audience in vernacular languages. It has a yellow-and-white interface and is currently available in 10 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Bengali, and English.
The Indian social networking site crossed 50 million downloads recently and aims to hit 100 million by 2023. Just like Twitter, Koo users can write short blogs and categorize posts with hashtags. They can further mention others in their posts and reply to people. The company had said it is open to hiring ex-Twitter employees who have been sacked under the leadership of the new boss Elon Musk.
Though the company’s guidelines prohibit hate speech and offensive content, Koo has been accused of being lax when it comes to content moderation, especially of certain right-wing groups in India.
