Amaan AhmedFebruary 15, 2021 6:34:50 PM IST
For the past few days, India has been waking up to ‘Koo, koo’. Except these aren’t melodious calls from a lovable koel, but rumors of a new Indian-made social platform advertising itself as a true blue rival of microblogging giant Twitter. From news of prominent government figures and departments joining in and actively lobbying Twitter users to switch to Koo, to cyber expert Elliot Alderson pointing out how the platform left user data in the open, Koo certainly it has the kind of attention its founders only dreamed of.
In this article, we take a look at 10 Indian apps that, like Koo, have been inspired by successful apps that were conceived and developed or are based abroad.
Twitter – Tooter
A few months before Koo rose to fame, there was another app that pointed to Twitter. Tooter, a name clearly derived from that of a certain microblogging website, launched in September 2020 and hoped to build what it calls a ‘Swadeshi social network’. Not only its name is artificial, but also its interface and theme, which is very similar to what you see on Twitter. And yet, in its About section, Tooter says without the aforementioned Swadeshi social network, ‘We are just a digital colony of the American Twitter India Company, no different than we were under the British East India Company.’ Its creators compare the platform’s deployment to the historic Swadeshi movement that was vital in gaining India’s independence. After the initial buzz (and a glut of memes), Tooter didn’t quite take off and has only received over 50,000 downloads on the Google Play store at the time of writing.
CamScanner – CamScanner
The popular document scanning app CamScanner was part of a long list of apps banned by the Indian government following the 2020 border skirmishes with China. Today, a single search for CamScanner on the Google Play store will return multiple results, with all alternative apps sporting almost-identical logo as well as the same color scheme. Among the main results is an application that literally bears the same name, with the same logo (only incorporating the Indian tricolor), developed by ‘Scanner – Scan Photos’, who proudly proclaims that it is an application made in India. However, the link to your site in the store leads to a blank web page and despite having over 1 million downloads, it only has a 3.3 star rating in the store.
PUBG – FAU-G, JOSH
While he was here, PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds (PUBG) was the most popular mobile game in the country. If you didn’t play it, you were in the minority; Resigned to being an outcast. However, the ban on China-based and China-funded apps in 2020 turned PUBG’s previously chaotic battlefields into virtual graveyards overnight. To fill this huge void, Bengaluru-based nCore Games announced similarly named FAU-G, or Fearless and United: Guards, in 2020. Aiming to make the most of a wave of patriotism that swept through the country. After the border skirmishes, nCore Games even promised to add a level to the game based on the Galwan Valley clashes, in which 20 Indian soldiers were martyred. The game was released on January 25 this year and has been downloaded by over 5 million users, but at the moment it has a low 3-star rating on the Play Store.
In a similar vein, UP-based Ekanomatic V Studios also released its multiplayer FPS JOSH (Joint Operation Secret Heroes) in September 2020, but it only has over 10,000 downloads and a 2.5-star rating on the Play Store.
Tiktok: an avalanche of alternatives
You could love it or hate it, but you couldn’t deny the importance of Tiktok in a society that was almost impatient to move away from established social media. It helped the short video industry grow substantially in a relatively short period of time, but the blanket ban on all China-based apps meant that its trip to India was cut short in 2020. Given its incredible popularity and success, It was not surprising to see several developers with alternatives waiting behind the scenes. Apps that have been around for a few years, including ShareChat, Roposo, and Chingari, witnessed a surge in downloads after the Tiktok ban, and apps like Mitron, Moj, Tnatan, and Josh arrived only in 2020, just in time for charge. at the exit of Tiktok. Of the lot are Sharechat and Roposo, which have over 100 million downloads, and Moj is also owned by Sharechat, which raised $ 40 million in the Pre-Series E round last year (bringing the total funding to $ 264 million), and will use the funds to continue growing Moj.
Another case of duplication was observed after the ban of the rather popular ShareIt app. Several clones appeared in the following days, one of which was Appyhigh Technology’s Share Karo India, which was released just a couple of weeks after ShareIt was banned. It almost entirely copies the ShareIt logo, as well as its functions. The founders of Appyhigh are Venus Dhuria and Aneesh Rayancha, who in 2014 had started Rutogo, an intercity taxi booking platform that was later acquired by the travel e-commerce portal Ixigo. At the time of this writing, Share Karo has over 10 million downloads and a 4-star rating on the Play Store.
WhatsApp – Hike Messenger
Unlike most of the apps on this list, the homegrown Hike Messenger had been around for a long time. Launched in 2012, Hike was designed to be a fast-growing alternative to WhatsApp. In the best messaging services, Hike Messenger evolved to offer much more over the years, and even morphed into ‘Hike Sticker Chat’ in 2019. The company said it had more than two million weekly active users in 2019, But in early 2021, Hike wiped out its messaging platforms, and the company’s CEO Kavin Bharti Mittal said in a tweet that the effects of the global network are too strong for India to have its own messenger. Hike is currently building two new social platforms: Guest-only Vibe and a gaming app called Rush.
Tinder – hello
Unlike most of the apps mentioned here, Tinder hasn’t gone anywhere. It is still a very important part of India’s virtual dating culture, but for those who are convinced that an Indian developer will help them find the love of their life, there is HiHi. Launched in August 2020 by Chennai-based Meotida Private Limited, HiHi follows the basic premise that users swipe left or right on the profiles they would like to have a conversation with or dismiss, as well as the Design theme and functionality of the application. However, with just over 10,000 downloads so far, it is highly unlikely that you will find your next HiHi date.
Helo – Pixalive
Along with Tiktok, another app owned by China-based ByteDance was Helo, which quickly became one of the most popular social platforms since its introduction in 2018, but was banned by the Indian government in 2020. To take its place , a bank based in Bangalore.The startup was ready with an app called Pixalive, which aimed to replicate the Helo experience by offering users a combination of local news, games, video content and more, in addition to messaging functions. . Right now, the app has over 100,000 downloads on the Play Store, most of which accumulated right after Helo’s departure.
Gleeden – Amoure
Why let an American developer decide who he should have an extramarital affair with? Why not trust an Indian developer with that vital responsibility? For those feeling brave and wanting to indulge in an adventure as easily as they would order pizza, West Bengal-based Amoure Team launched Amoure in April 2020, amid the national lockdown. Amoure was hoping to witness the kind of growth that Gleeden, a similar app, based in the US only, made last year, crossing the 13 lakh subscriber mark, with 2.5 lakh joining between October. and November 2020. Amoure is yet to witness that kind of success, however, with the app only receiving over 50,000 downloads on the Play Store so far.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.