The race to take the place of TikTok, which is banned in India, seems to be a never-ending one. Even as biggies like Facebook tweak its platform to make room for Instagram Reels, which is a kind of a TikTok clone, another global player Snap Inc has gone live in India with its short video platform, Spotlight.
Spotlight is available within the Snapchat app and is an entertainment platform, which contains user-generated content. Snap claims that Spotlight has had over 100 million users in January.
Spotlight allows users post interesting and funny Snaps or short videos on the platform and these can then be viewed by other users on the platform.
Spotlight surfaces “the most entertaining Snaps from the Snapchat community all in one place and will become tailored to each Snapchatter over time, based on their preferences and favourites,” the company said in a press statement.
Spotlight feed was first announced in November last year. It is now also available in India, Mexico, and Brazil, having launched in 11 other countries previously.
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Viral content stands to get monetary compensation
The interesting thing about Spotlight is that the company will pay creators whose content goes viral on the platform.
Snap’s $1 million a day program will also be available in India, the company said and added "Snapchatters must be 16 or older, and where applicable, obtain parental consent to earn."
Further, Spotlight content is moderated and doesn’t allow for public comments. Snaps submitted to Spotlight must respect Snap's content guidelines to receive distribution. This is Snap's way of protecting users from trolling or other forms of harassment on the platform.
India, an important market for Snapchat
India is an important market for Snap and it breached the 60 million users-mark in the country in January this year.
Globally, Snapchat had 265 million daily active users in the December 2020 quarter. Over five billion 'snaps' were created daily on average by users on the platform.
India is the biggest market after the US for Snapchat. The company is going the whole hog in making Snapchat feel local to its user community in India. Snap's team in India focuses on developing culturally relevant products, community engagement, and partnerships.
It is also looking to invest in India's home grown social media platform ShareChat.
