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Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, things have been chaotic at the social media platform — with sudden feature announcements and the pullbacks, mass layoffs, resignations en masse, and an exodus of users.
Amid this commotion, many Twitter users are looking for alternatives, with Mastodon already emerging as a worthy competitor. Now, India’s own microblogging platform Koo is also emerging as an option for more users and trying to position itself as the next Twitter, should the now Elon Musk-controlled platform crash and burn, as unlikely as that may seem.
We take a closer look at Koo and how it’s expanding its user base across the world.
All about Koo
Koo, which caters primarily to non-English users, was launched in early 2020 by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka.
It rose in prominence after winning the government’s Atmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge and also when Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned it in his Mann ki Baat address.
However it grew significantly in 2021 when the Centre was embroiled in a struggle with Twitter over blocking of certain accounts. Soon after, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, then Law & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Members of Parliament Tejasvi Surya and Shobha Karandlaje, former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Isha Foundation’s Jaggi Vasudev and former cricketers Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble joined the platform.
Moreover, Union IT ministry, India Post and the Niti Aayog created accounts on the platform.
