For Israil Ansari, 2018 turned things around for him when he realized that he could actually turn into an overnight superstar by sharing has videos via Tiktok showcasing local talent at a global stage. A Uttar Pradesh lad, then 18 he posted a 15 second tiktok video dancing to a Bollywood song with the rice fields of his Uttar Pradesh village in the backdrop. Even though looking rather funny dancing, he was an instant hit. A school dropout who shuttled between his village, Lucknow and then Mumbai he earned more than two million followers and over Rs 1 lakh in monthly income from public appearances and endorsements.
Similarly Geet never dreamt of a life on TikTok. Born in India and raised in Seattle, she was an engineering student and worked in a law firm before shifting to Delhi with her parents to do social work. She opened a TikTok account in February last. She used it to spread education far and wide. She used her skills to teach people "American English". Her channel had six million followers.
Tiktok has been home to the best jokes, acts filled with music, dance, acting, emojis and a whole lot of crazy stuff. On June 29, India banned 59 Chinese mobile apps including TikTok, UC Browser and Cam Scanner among others. As per the government view the apps are 'engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order'.
With Tiktok gone, Israil, Geet and many more like them are trying hard to brave it out. By then, many Tik-Tok stars had already posted videos urging their fans to follow them to rival platforms such as Instagram or YouTube. But many pointed out it won’t be the same. Tiktok’s loss is India’s big gain. Now indigenously made apps are fast catching the fancy of Indian Tiktok stars who are getting a new platform to showcase their talent. Post the Chinese app ban, apps of all hues are now adding to the app love that Indians love to harbour. Mitron, Roposo, Bolo India, Sharechat. Though compared to Chinese apps the wide gamut of features are not available but if backed up with care, each one of these apps have the potential to rise and do well.
Prepared by IIT, Sharechat is now proving to be a big plus for everyone. India is now downloading the Indianapp at a very high rate. Each hour there are 5L users who are signing up and using it to their favour. Everyday they are using this app for atleast 25 minutes. Three IITIANs, - Ankush Sachdev, Fareed Ehsaan and Bhanu Pratap singh created it. Since its inception in 2015, the app has been quite a raging hit in the country. Sharechat is useful in sharing video, audio and messages. Lucknow boy Fareed, Ankush from Delhi and Bhanu Pratap Singh of Gorakhpur are brains behind this. Sharechat is multilingual and it works on 15 languages. An estimated 100 crore messages have been shared each month. At present there are 6 crore active users. There has been as many as 1.50 crore downloads of the app. On Google Play Store there have been nearly 10 crore downloads so far. Available in 15 Indian languages.
Another app is Chingari that started trending on social media sites as soon as the news of TikTok ban came out in India. 72 hours after release the app has seen as many as 5 lakh downloads. In Google Playstore in less than 22 days there has been seen a steep amount of 5 crore downloads. Biswatma Nayak and Siddharth Gautam have created this app. Interestingly Mahindra Group head Anand Mahindra has downloaded the app at a time when he had not done the same for TikTok.
A true blue Made-in-India App it provides exactly the same experience as TikTok. The Google Play Store rating of the Chingari app is 4.1 out of 5. It has support for 10 languages such as English, Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
It offers trending news, entertainment news, funny videos, video songs, love quotes, status for whatsapp, etc. On this platform, more than 10,000 creators post daily by creating entertainment content every day.
Another one is the Mitron app. The App was created to compete with TikTok, and was launched in India as an alternative to TikTok. With anti Chinese sentiment high, the app gained tremendous popularity and within 2 months of its launch, the app received more than 1 crore downloads from the Google Play Store. Removed from Google Play, due to violation of policy, the app was later restored after fixing the problem. At the moment the app has received 10 million downloads on Google play, while the app has a rating of 4.4 stars out of 5.
Roposo is another Indian short video app. Information available on the Google Play Store shows it has filters, stickers, and effects that make great videos with natural light, studio lights, contour lights, stage and stage mono lights in slow-mo, time-lapse, or portraits. This is very similar to the Tiktok app. More than 50 lakh people have downloaded this app on their device. In Roposo app you will get support of English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi and Bengali languages.
Another good option is an India-made app called Bolo India that can compete with the Chinese-made TikTok app. On this app you can create and share short videos in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi and Odia languages. Talking about Google Play rating, this app has been rated 4 out of 5, while 5 lakh people have downloaded it on their smartphone. Videos related to learning English on this platform, entertainment, travel, recipe, inspiration, exam, career, shopping, technology, etc. are shared. 'Bolo India' aims to empower every Indian with a platform to share their opinions, share experiences, become Internet influencers and share their knowledge.
Zee5 has announced to enter the race. News has come that Zee5 has announced that it is going to launch a short video platform in India, soon to be named HiPi. The company says that this new platform has been created under 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat', which will provide an Indian platform to Indian content creators.
Replaceit is an Indian app that has been launched recently and has recorded over one lakh downloads. Not only will this help you identify a Chinese app but it will also help you uninstall flawed Chinese apps and install the latest trending Indian ones. This has been developed by Maharashtra’s Vidisha lad Ankit Agarwal.
Say Namaste meanwhile is seen as a solution to the growing aversion to the Zoom app. In an anti Chinese environment the app has fast caught the fancy of the public. In Google Play store, it has been downloaded over 5 lakh times. This is available both for Android and IOS. With a video call possibility of as high as 50 people.
DIGITAL SURGICAL STRIKE
Chinese app Tik Tok reportedly wanted to earn as much as Rs 100 crore from India till September. With a ban, Chinese tech giant unicorn ByteDance Ltd anticipates a loss of over $6 billion.
KEEPING A CHECK
Students are either working online or doing social media. Brain Alive will help one assess the understandability the worker has about what he or she is doing. A Kanpur technocrat is helping streamline work in schools, colleges and corporate entities. The work is by technical expert Gaurav Dubey. The app created is called Brain Alive. The app has already been patented. The app can map someone’s eyes, brain and other vitals. This information once mapped automatically reaches the management.
FORTUNES NOSEDIVING
70% startups have faced a very rude shock with dipping fortunes post the Corona crisis. In a joint study of the Indian Oil Network and FICCI this startling fact has come out. Amidst uncertainty, there has been a drastic change in corporate and government priorities. In the study it has comeout that for the next three to six months there is simply 22% money to spend to meet the demands of the company. Companies across the board have reduced, the management and administrative expenditure by 68%. Nearly 30% companies are in the mood to do major layoffs if the lockdown stretches. In between April – June a salary cut has been seen estimated at 43%. There is also 92% confirmation that investments in startups will be low.
Abridged version of story first published in The Lucknow Tribune.
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