Smartican: Smart transformation from a quiz game to a social network

Smartican wants their users to meet each other through common interests and show them content which is not just limited.

Smartican wants their users to meet each other through common interests and show them content which is not just limited.

The social media bubble has become an airtight space crowded with companies offering similar services with a new bumper sticker. The big bang in the business – which started with hi5 a decade ago — now seems to be nothing but just another theory dismissed by creationists. When the time comes for the bubble to burst, new challengers such as Smartican are waiting at the ringside ready to move up the social media ladder. Launched in 2013 and with a current user base of around 20 lakh, Smartican might not be ready for the title fight just yet, but they will be given the time.

The genesis of Smartican lies in its name. In the beginning, the idea was to create a social game that would test the player’s general knowledge. Motion Punch Studios, founded by Charak Almast (CEO), Abhishek Puri (CBDO), Aastha Almast (CMO, Legal and Finance) and Mani Dev Gyawali (CTO), in the process of developing this quizzing game, coincidentally named Smartican, changed course and set sail to launching a social media site instead. What pushed the team to anchor their ship in the challenging waters of social media were social issues faced by teenagers. When Motion Punch Studios was testing their game, many adolescents complained that they don’t have a platform to speak on various issues faced by them, be it at home or school. This motivated the team to create a website where teenagers can network freely without the fear of being reprimanded.

[related-post]

“We are a nation that is encouraged not to question. Freedom of speech is curbed in our country (referring to Section 66A). People cannot openly come and talk so we (Smartican) integrated the Anonymous feature,” Aastha Almast, CMO and co-founder of Smartican told IndianExpress.com.

Story continues below this ad

However, the option to ‘Shout’ anonymously does put the entire operation at risk, but they have a data moderation team that monitors them. Moreover, 99% of the anonymous ‘Shouts’ are productive, claims Aastha.

Aastha Almast, CMO and co-founder of Smartican

The team has noticed that content on popular social media websites is not “highly visible” and it is slipping through the cracks like sand in an hourglass. Smartican wants their users to meet each other through common interests and show them content which is not just limited to family and friends circles.

Aastha, using the recent Delhi polls as an example, explains that in the run up to the elections Smartican users publicly endorsed a party of their choice in “Raajneeti” Hot Topic page. In fact, the Aam Aadmi Party did create more than a buzz on the site that made the founders feel it was going to be a landslide win for the party. Like politics, there are other Hot Topics that will pique the user’s interest.

In short, Aastha says that “in a utopian world, Smartican would be a country with 20 lakh people where everybody has a chance to meet everybody through common interests”.

Story continues below this ad

“Smartican is planning to shift to a bigger office and we, in fact, found our real estate agent on the site,” adds Aastha.

All the posts in a topic page are well structured so that it allows the user to absorb a lot of information without much scrolling. Smartican doesn’t want the content to be scattered like Tetris blocks, but look like a neatly spread deck of flash cards. Also, to eliminate duplication, they made every topic seem like a unique hashtag on Smartican.

Aastha says the second most active users on Smartican are those over 50 years old. They make up about 15% of the site’s user base. “Never expected older people to actively use Smartican. Lot of housewives are meeting a lot of interesting people through the site,” said Aastha.

In the next five years, Smartican is looking to capture the Indian market and grow from its ten thousand daily active users.

Tags:
Social media