MUMBAI: Shekhar Kapur and AR Rahman today launched their highly awaited social media platform, Qyuki Digital Media Pvt Ltd.

The platform aims to provide an opportunity to youths who can experience and co-create differentiated content with the experts and be inspired by the masters creations.

Qyuki, that was available online on Beta since July, is now available on the Android platform and a Windows version is expected to follow soon. The site will also be made available on the mobile platform to tap into the hinterlands market. Currently India has around 61 million active online users, according to the latest study conducted by the US Census Bureau. 

IT giant Cisco is one of the key early investors in Qyuki, and the platform is built on Cisco’s cloud infrastructure. The partnership is in line with the company’s $ 1.1 billion investment plan in India, top official said.

Qyuki CEO Poonacha Machaiah said, “The core philosophy of Qyuki is to take social expression to a different level, where we leverage the power of multimedia, collaboration and social web, to provide consumers a unique experience across the web and mobile platforms. Qyuki will build a strong creative community by offering co-creation opportunities, collaboration, recognition and a creative marketplace to the consumers.”

The site will be highly India-centric ‘social expression platform’ and will harness the creative talent in Film Making, Visual Arts, Music, Writing, Performing Arts, Design & Crafts with focus on rural and smaller tiered towns.

Under the terms and conditions of the site, the copyrights rights will remain with the original content provider. The content will be curated at three levels- by fellow members of the site, by panel members and expert panel consisting of eminent professionals in the arts including filmmaker Imtiaz Ali, writer Chetan Bhagat, musician Ranjit Barot and photographer Suresh Natrajan.

Monetization will be based on advertisement as volume increases, brand engagement and a subscription model which will be rolled out in coming months. Revenue sharing between the content provider and the site is also being worked out.

“We are not another YouTube. Our last intention is to override talent but build individualism in community. We are creating a community and despite the risk, banking on the collective wisdom of the members in deciding the merits of the shared content. We are planning our own redundancy,” Kapur said.

With media houses like Big Synergy and Rajshri already roped in, developers are confident that with 75 per cent of net connectivity happening via mobile platform and the government preparing to roll out 250,000 high-speed internet network Qyuki will grow exponentially.

“The USP (Unique Selling Preposition) of the site is that its all-Indian identity and that it will filter out the junk content on the net experts and quality testing. For a creative person interested, he should just go out and be consistent. Your karma will get you noticed,” Rahman said.