China’s biggest gay dating app wants to beat Grindr

Plus: Viral songs inspired by the trials of gig work, and why African streamers struggle against Netflix/Prime Video.

Daniel Zender for RoW China's biggest gay dating app wants to beat Grindr Facing censorship and competition at home, Blued has plans to build the world's largest gay social platform. READ MORE > The trials of gig work are inspiring a new genre of hit songs Rappers, singers, and ordinary gig workers are writing songs about delivery life — and scoring viral hits. READ MORE > Livestream shopping keeps failing in India. Amazon thinks it has the answer Most startups that tried to popularize livestream commerce in the country are struggling. READ MORE > 🌏 Are you subscribed to Exporter, our weekly newsletter on the impact of Big Tech outside the West? SIGN UP > African streaming services are struggling to compete with Netflix and Prime Video The appetite for video streaming is growing in Africa, but local services are struggling for content. READ MORE > Getir bets big on the U.S. even as it bleeds cash The Turkish unicorn is a global champion of ultrafast delivery, but it's facing long odds in the U.S. READ MORE > On location We've worked with over 100 photographers around the world to help us visualize technology's impact. Can you guess where this photo was taken? Khadija Farah for RoW   Kenya South Africa Madagascar 3 minutes with Akshay Chaturvedi CEO, Leverage Edu 🇮🇳 Leverage Edu is a study-abroad platform that helps Indian students find courses and apply to international universities. It has, of late, also helped students get education loans, apply for visas, and find accommodation. The company, founded by Akshay Chaturvedi, has raised $70 million, and is valued at $150 million. It is one of the few profitable edtech companies in India. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. What makes Leverage Edu different in the highly competitive study-abroad market in India? Every country has traditionally had some allegiance to a certain kind of geography: Nigerians go to the U.K., while Nepali and Thai people go to Australia. Punjabis mostly go to Canada, and Gujaratis prefer going to the U.K. Our strategy to grow has been to follow flight routes. When I'm thinking about the U.S., I'm only thinking about Houston and Dallas — as allegiance to those universities is strong in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. We've been focused on breaking this down into absolute granular math, focusing on 193 micro-markets in India. What has building this business taught you about the aspirations of Indian students and parents? There are 34 million people who need higher education in India every year, and that number is growing by about 20%–30% each year. But only 1 million people go abroad. Nobody here cares about having a degree for their drawing room wall. There has to be a job at the end of the day. Most Western countries are facing a massive talent shortage, and the big answer is that India can become the talent exporter of the world. We're mobilizing talent. With the funding winter, profitability has become important for venture capitalists. What has helped make Leverage Edu profitable? We do focused work — 67% of all our acquisitions are organic, and we generated traffic from our AI-powered university course finder and UniConnect, which connects aspirants with university representatives. We don't depend much on Facebook and Google. We brought down costs, almost 75%, with zero customer acquisition cost — that's how we became profitable. Another reason is the addition of different services for students: financial services, accommodation, loan, visa, and foreign exchange. MORE INTERVIEWS > What we're reading Instagram's auto-translation feature on user bios was inserting "terrorist" into English-language translations of the words "Palestinian" and "alhamdulillah" in Arabic, 404 Media found. As the Israel-Hamas war continues to escalate, many Instagram users are accusing the platform of suppressing posts that support Palestinians, raising censorship concerns in an environment already rife with misinformation. North Korea dispatched thousands of IT workers, mostly to China and Russia, who used false identities to get hired as remote workers by U.S. companies and send back wages for use in its ballistic missile program, the Associated Press reports. FBI officials announced the seizure of $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of their investigation. Yugoslavia's national web domain (.yu) remained active for two decades after the dissolution of the country in the early '90s. With the eventual deletion of the domain in 2010, websites that contained important historical records to nostalgic virtual forums disappeared, highlighting issues around internet preservation, The Dial writes. And one more thing... We're hiring! Rest of World is looking for editors to spearhead our coverage in Latin America and China. Think you'd make a good fit? Check out the job descriptions below and apply to work with us. Editor, Latin America Editor, China Thank you and 👋. Please forward this to a friend and do reach out to us via hello@restofworld.org. — Edited by Paula Cho restofworld.org Past Issues • Unsubscribe 101 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10006 Like our journalism? Consider donating Follow us on Instagram • Twitter • LinkedIn