The clones are coming in fast: it has only been about ten days since TikTok was last accessible in India, but even in that short period of time, the short video space in the country has been in a frenzy. While the “Indian” alternatives have gained a sizeable user base ever since TikTok was banned, it remains to be seen if any of these apps will be able to match TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, or the network effects, which played a crucial role in TikTok’s success in the first place. There is also threat from the deep-pockets of Facebook, which expanded Instagram Reels to India just this week. While the Indian alternatives might still have some way to go to match TikTok's user interface, or recommendation algorithm, they have one thing in abundance which even Instagram Reels can't match — the fact that they can all market themselves as "Indian" apps. As Indian short video apps have raked up their user base, all of them have made it a point to tom-tom their “Indianness” in the aftermath of border conflict against China. This strategy, however, seems to have merit, given that search trends on Google show that people have been searching for the country of origin of a number of these short video apps. We studied several popular Indian TikTok alternatives, starting from how they serve content down to how they position themselves on both app stores: How Indian platforms stack up against each other Broadly, Roposo seemed to have been the most…
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It’s clear, Indian short video apps are betting on their ‘Indianness’, but who’ll come out on top?
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