TikTok lessons to help people become influencersWhat's the news?
TikTok is spawning a parallel economy in the form of training classes, meet-ups, and workshops which promise to teach users how to become influencers and gain popularity on the fast-growing social media platform
What do these classes teach?
These professional classes train people to make TikTok videos, edit them, and offer tips on how to best push their content so that it goes viral. One such training shop recently opened in Delhi and charges anywhere between Rs 7,000-10,000 per month for weekly classes. Read more.
Indian bitcoin players wary of Facebook's stablecoin
What's the news?
Indian companies in the cryptocurrency space say Facebook’s reported plan to test its virtual currency codenamed Libra in the country will potentially bypass regulations that doesn’t allow using banking channels for digital currency transactions.
What's the significance?
Facebook is expected to allow peer-to-peer transaction of its cryptocurrency and, unlike domestic bitcoin companies, the social media giant’s proposed currency system would not require to use banks to transfer money to buy or sell digital currency, founders of some cryptocurrency startups in the country told ET.
The only benefit with Facebook’s move could be that digital currencies may gain legitimacy in the country. Read more. Read more.
A growing ecosystem of third-party video apps
What's the news?
The popularity of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and WhatsApp has resulted in a rapidly-growing ecosystem of third-party applications that can be used to create funny, quirky and potentially viral content for these social media and messaging platforms.
What's the reason for this growth?
The fundamental reason for these apps to grow is content scarcity, said Abhilash Inumella, CEO of popular video app Samosa Labs, which counts Xiaomi and Sequoia Capital as investors. He said 95% of the users of Samosa Labs use the app to upload content on WhatsApp. Other popular apps include Roposo, CaptionPlus from TNine Infotech, Hashtags for TikTok, TikRing, Selfie Photo Camera Editor and Filters for Snapchat. Read more.
Increasing digital gold sales
What's the news?
Digital payment firms are seeing increased gold sales during festivals like Akshaya Tritiya backed by attractive offers
What's the growth like?
PhonePe said that it saw a six times jump in the value of gold purchases on Tuesday last week because of Akshaya Tritiya. Paytm said it has seen a seven-fold jump in the purchase of gold through the platform on the same day. TMW said it has sold around 5 kg of gold on the occasion alone, against a daily average of 1kg. Read more.
HCL's $200M debt plan
What's the news?
HCL Technologies’ plan to raise $200 million to fund its acquisitions of some intellectual property (IP) assets of IBM is a concern, say analysts who have seen Indian IT services firms hoard cash that they typically return to shareholders.
What's the debt for?
In December, HCL Technologies had said it would buy select software products from IBM, including its email client Lotus notes, for $1.8 billion. The company plans to take $200 million debt to part-fund the deal. HCL Technologies has nearly $1.12 billion in net cash reserves as of now. Read more.