Reddit can now Translate Posts to 8 Languages
Online social discussion forum Reddit has allowed users to translate their posts into eight different languages. Reddit users can now translate posts when viewing them on Reddit’s iOS or Android apps or on the web while logged out, according to the company. To begin with, posts can be translated into English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish. By clicking on the “translate” button at the top of the post, the post will be translated to the language chosen via user settings. “We’ve also started experimenting with translations to the comments on iOS and Android, so a few of you may notice this experiment too. Soon, your entire conversation experience on Reddit can be multilingual,” according to a Reddit admin employee. Also, in an effort to clean up subdomains, new.reddit.com will now take logged-out redditors to our new and improved logged-out desktop experience. For logged in users, nothing has changed, according to the company. Last month, after facing subreddits’ protest against the company’s new application programming interface (API) pricing changes, Reddit made several updates to its website for logged-out users. The new changes include a more consistent and fast web experience for people not logged in. This experience is now available to everyone globally on desktop and mobile web.
Biz messaging going to be Meta India’s next growth engine
It has been almost nine months since Sandhya Devanathan took over as the head and vice-president of Meta India, returning to her home country after 17 years. She has said “I spent the first eight months in on-boarding and getting to know the team and all the businesses that we support. Even as I am settling into the current role, I am also seeing the other side of the country — digital transformation, which we cannot see from outside. We did go through a tough phase as we parted with very talented colleagues. But being in India is exciting. Business messaging is going to be the next engine of growth for Meta in India. I see this as the next leap of growth, and I also see this transforming businesses, especially those that are setting up their first ‘storefront’ on WhatsApp…I am focussed on that. Two, I think we are placed nicely among the big and small brands and how we serve them not just on WhatsApp but also on Facebook (FB) and Instagram. We think as India aims to be an $8 trillion economy, small businesses will play a strong role and Meta can be part of that. Third, creators and their ability to find expression on our platforms. We just did our all-hands meeting, and one of the things we discussed was how we can be part of the innovation that is happening from here. About the digital data protection law, we welcome regulations that balance user safety and security and innovations. It provided us with clarity, but the rule book is still being written by the ministry. We are awaiting the rules before we can comment more on that. But as a first step, it’s definitely provided clarity to the industry. Transforming businesses of all sizes and also making it a growth engine for us. Interestingly, in a survey we did, 90% of the people on our platform have spoken to a business and 70% prefer to message a business rather than talk to them on a phone. So there is a big shift happening in consumer behaviour. As a platform we are super well poised to capitalize on that shift. Second, the advertising market in the country as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) is still low. The contribution of advertisement to GDP in India is still at a lower end, somewhere at 0.5%; it’s 1.9% in the US. But the shift to digital is happening rapidly in the country, giving us a huge opportunity. On revenue from India, we are actually pleased with what we are doing here now. FB is very much a thriving community. This has been powered by a lot of work that is being done by AI. Now, 25% of all the recommendations that you see on FB are recommended by AI engines. The other thing is the availability of Reels on FB. When you talk of monetisation engines, while business messaging is a big focus, video consumption on our platforms is also big. Our MAU (monthly active users) numbers in FB in India have also grown very well. Businesses are finding value and getting better returns.
G20 declaration to give India’s crypto regulation a fillip
India is expected to hold wider discussions on the regulation of crypto assets after the G20 Leaders’ Declaration welcomed the synthesis note by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Financial Stability Board (FSB) on crypto assets, said department of economic affairs (DEA) secretary Ajay Seth after the G20 meeting. “Since there is consensus at the multilateral level on crypto currency and endorsement from the leaders, we will now study it and make our policy accordingly,” Seth said. “We expect a lot of discussion to happen on how to implement it faster and in a comprehensive manner. We have a good framework to decide our own way forward. The foundation is ready, and beyond that, how much do we want to go. It is for us to decide in the coming months and then take a call,” the official said. Former DEA secretary Subash Garg said that India has clearly abandoned the idea of banning crypto, at least in public expression. India would, however, follow the global consensus on crypto assets, which goes beyond G20. One country alone, whichever path it takes, would not be effective. Whatever we do, we have to refer to the global community. The discussion will happen now in our system. It is not an easy one. The IMF-FSB synthesis paper — while laying out the macroeconomic risks of crypto assets — seeks to establish “a minimum baseline that jurisdictions should meet. It aims to address the issues common across the majority of jurisdictions.” The synthesis paper had said that blanket bans, which make crypto assets illegal, can be costly and technically demanding to enforce. A decision to ban is not an “easy option” the report said, while adding that temporary restrictions should not substitute for robust macroeconomic policies.The IMF-FSB recommendations, along with the roadmap for implementation would be discussed at the fourth meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors scheduled to take place in Marrakech, Morocco. That is, on the sidelines of the 2023 annual meetings of World Bank and IMF during October 9-15.
Nvidia to Partner Reliance, Tata for Big AI Play in India
American chipmaker Nvidia and Reliance Industries, India’s largest company by market cap, will together build a foundational large language model (LLM) — an artificial intelligence algorithm —that will be trained on an array of diverse Indic languages used by the country’s 1.4 billion people, chief executive Jensen Huang announced. The $27.5 billion company, which is the world’s best-known maker of hardware and software for AI tools, also said it will partner with the Tata Group to advance AI infrastructure in India. The co-created LLM, which is the bedrock of all generative AI models such as ChatGPT, will be eventually owned by Reliance, Huang said. “They (Reliance) can create AI models, services and applications for their 450 million (customers),” he added. Meanwhile, the partnership with the Tata Group’s Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors and Tata Communications is aimed at building “AI infrastructure that is over an order of magnitude more powerful than the fastest supercomputer in India today”, Huang said. Pointing to the advancements that have “made focus on AI a central priority in governments, industries and society at large”, N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, said “the impact of AI and machine learning is going to be profound across industries and every aspect of our lives”. The Tata Group’s partnership with Nvidia will “democratize access to AI infrastructure, accelerate build-out of AI solutions and enable upgradation of AI talent at scale”, he said in a statement. Nvidia will provide access to the most advanced Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and Nvidia DGX Cloud, an AI supercomputing service in the cloud. GH200 provides massive memory Bandwidth. Data will come from Reliance, it will also own and operate the AI model. TCS’ 6 Lakhs professionals will be reskilled for AI by NVidia.
Growth, not Cost Savings, Drive Cloud Adoption
More companies are opting for cloud solutions in order to drive business growth instead of using cloud for only cost efficiencies, found a new report by Infosys. Nearly two-thirds of firms (65%) use three or four cloud vendors, a 75% increase over the proportion who used three or four providers in 2021, said the Infosys cloud radar 2023 report released on Thursday. Over the past two years, the proportion of companies using a single cloud provider has decreased from 21% in 2021 to just 7% in 2023. Instead of migrating all their applications to the massive cloud resources purchased, companies want to streamline their cloud approach, found the report. Anant Adya, executive vice president – Infosys Cobalt – the IT major’s flagship cloud platform solution, said that customers are now looking at using cloud to enable more business growth. The report found that companies have utilized less than 50% of the cloud resources that they have committed to with over $300 billion worth of cloud resources yet to be used.
Snapchat’s new features to protect teens from potential online risks
Instant messaging platform Snapchat announced new features to protect its teenage users between the age of 13 and 17 years from potential online risks. The new features, which will begin to roll out in the coming weeks, are designed to protect teenagers from being contacted by people they may not know in real life; provide a more age-appropriate viewing experience on the content platform; and enable more effective removal of accounts that may be trying to market and promote age-inappropriate content through a new strike system and new detection technologies. The platform requires teens to be Snapchat friends or have phone book contacts with another user before they can begin communicating. This is a part of Snapchat’s policy to allow messaging access to teenagers from only someone they know in real life – such as a friend, family member or other trusted person. Snapchat is also launching a new feature that creates a pop-up warning message to a teen if someone tries to add them as a friend when they don’t share mutual contacts or the person isn’t in their contacts. This message will urge the teen to carefully consider if they want to be in contact with this person and not to connect with them if it isn’t someone they trust. Additionally, the messaging platform will increase the bar of minimum mutual friends with other users a teenager’s account needs to appear in search results.
Clubhouse is a Messaging App Post Rejig
Popular social audio platform Clubhouse, which was at the peak of the pandemic lockdown, witnessing 10x month-on-month growth and then disappeared from public discussion, has now transformed itself into a new audio messaging app. The firm has reinvented itself “to be more like a messaging app” with new voice-only group chats called “Chats”. “We’re evolving Clubhouse to be more like a messaging app. It’s designed to be more social than other messaging apps, and a bit more Clubhouse-y,” Clubhouse said. According to the company, a Chat is a voice-only group chat with your favourite people.
Digital Fashion disruptor brands likely to reach $10 billion
Digital disruptor brands are projected to outpace the growth of the online fashion market, with a 35% compound annual growth rate expected to reach $10 billion by 2027-28 (FY28), up from its current size of $2.4 billion. Consumer preference for experimenting with new brands and the innovation from digital-first brands are driving this trend, according to a report by Bain & Company and TMRW House of Brands, an Aditya Birla Group venture. The report, titled Digital Fashion Disruptors: Navigating the Future of Fashion, also states that the overall online fashion market is anticipated to grow to approximately $35 billion by FY28, with digital disruptors capturing about 29% of the market share. Digital disruptor brands are those that begin by selling online. “Digital disruptor brands are creating a new fashion playbook. They have achieved a 33% growth rate in the last four years and are expected to increase their share of the overall fashion market,” as Radhika Sridharan, a partner at Bain & Company, was quoted as saying in the report’s release. She also added, “Young customers, especially Generation Z (GenZ), exhibit a greater propensity to try and purchase these brands. Certain historically fragmented sub-categories, such as ethnic wear and kids wear, are undergoing significant transformation with the growth and scaling of new digitally-led brands and are expected to see outsized growth in the next five years.” The report states that website and app data analysis shows that 70–80% of the traffic to digital disruptors originates from these segments, with GenZ accounting for 30–35% and Millennials for 40–45% of the total traffic. Additionally, consumer spending analysis reveals that 24% of individuals aged 18–24 buy from digital disruptor brands, compared to only 13% of people over the age of 45. The report anticipates that by FY28, approximately 50 digital disruptor brands are expected to surpass Rs 250 crore in revenue.
Flipkart forays into immersive shopping experience domain
Flipkart has forayed into the immersive shopping experience domain with Virtual Worlds to enhance customer experience and engagement. Following the launch of 3D and AR features in 2021, and the introduction of Beauty/Makeup Try-ons, Flipkart is focusing on immersive shopping. These spaces allow users to visualize products in a more life-like manner, increasing engagement through interactive and fun elements and eventually leading to a more informed purchasing decision. Flipkart achieved the e-commerce metaverse activation globally with Flipverse, piloted last year. Over a span of six days, people from across 2,300 cities came together virtually to discover products in a unique manner and immerse themselves in the experience. Flipverse streamed for 20,000 hours with 300-500 users connecting to the verse on their phones every minute, said the company. Notably, users who created avatars spent six times more time in Flipverse compared to the average user, underscoring the platform’s engagement and allure. Based on these insights, Flipkart has introduced a substantial offering that enables brands to develop custom Virtual Metaverse worlds within the Flipkart platform. Flipkart is offering two immersive shopping experience formats. The first format consists of dedicated, customized Virtual Worlds created by brands on the Flipkart app. These immersive 3D-rendered spaces align with the next generation of shopping, engaging users in an immersive experience. The second format includes co-tenancy of brands within Flipkart’s own Virtual World, known as Flipverse. Additionally, Flipkart has launched its own Laptops Virtual Showroom, letting users explore 45-50 laptops in an immersive setting similar to an offline store.
India Post, Shiprocket join hands to strengthen e-commerce export ecosystem
In a strategic move to fortify India’s e-commerce export ecosystem, the Department of Posts has collaborated with Shiprocket (Bigfoot Retail Solutions) to harness India Post’s extensive reach and dependable shipping solutions to enhance cross-border e-commerce exports. The signing of the agreement in New Delhi, witnessed by key figures including Alok Sharma, Director General of Postal Services, and Saahil Goel, CEO of Shiprocket, marks a significant milestone in India’s digital cross-border trade. The collaboration aims to streamline e-commerce exports, offering logistical advantages and simplifying export processes for small and medium-sized businesses. It will facilitate the creation of electronic Postal Bills of Export (PBE) and shipping labels directly from the Shiprocket platform for India-based vendors. This integration between Dak Ghar Niryat Kendras (DNKs) and Shiprocket allows for seamless connectivity, enabling vendors to avail packaging, label printing, pickup services, and shipment induction at the nearest DNK, further fostering e-commerce growth and innovation.