Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: In the backdrop of the spat with Twitter, homegrown microblogging platform Koo has seen a massive surge in user base in the last few days with the government to ministers and eminent personalities also endorsing the rival app of the microblogging giant Twitter.
From information technology ministry using Koo to broadcast its stand on Twitter not fully complying with its order to take down inflammatory content to ministers, including Piyush Goyal, urging people to switch platform, these developments have led to a surge in the userbase of the Indian rival.
What Is Special About Koo?
Koo, which has startling similarities with Twitter, now has over three million users. Downloads of Koo app surged 10-fold this week. Koo has a yellow bird as its logo in contrast to the blue bird of Twitter. It is available as a website and on iOS and Google Play Store.
Koo's platform has a similar look and feel to Twitter, including the user interface. When it comes to the logo, Koo has a yellow bird as its mascot while Twitter has blue-coloured 'Larry' (inspired by popular basketball player, Larry Bird) representing the brand.
According to Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawataka, users will be able to find topics around their language of choice, follow people in their spoken language.
Is Koo Alternative To Twitter?
"We had two million users with about 1.5 million active users. Now, we have crossed 3 million-mark," Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawataka was quoted as saying to the PTI.
Twitter has 17.5 million users and is ardently used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet ministers to communicate with the public.
Interestingly, Koo co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna took to Twitter to highlight the rising popularity of the platform and tweeted, "Our systems are facing more load than ever. Thank you for placing your trust in us. Our team is working on overdrive to fix it".
Founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, Koo was launched last year to allow users to express themselves and engage on the platform in Indian languages. It supports multiple languages including Hindi, Telugu and Bengali, among others.
(Inputs from PTI)