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This is the remaining pre-lunch time addition to India Ink today(20 03 2012) . -bhuban Celebrities in India are increasingly using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with their fans — actors Hrithik Roshan and Amitabh Bachan and composer A.R. Rahman are just a few examples of active users. Now WhoSay, which is based in Albany, New York, and has offices in Los Angeles, New York City and London, is targeting these celebrities. NYCDESI The Indian Scene, as Seen From New York WhoSay.com, an invite-only site, is a collaboration between Amazon.com and Los Angeles-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which aims to be a one-stop way for the famous to control their social media. The site is linked to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and the China-based Tencent, so posting messages or uploading photos on WhoSay.com updates all these platforms. HootSuite.com, Yonoo.com and Ping.fm are other popular social media one-stops, but WhoSay.com claims to be the first invitation-only site targeting celebrities. For fans, who are visiting the Web site at a rate of 77,000 per day, the advantage is authenticity, executives say — because the site is invite-only, celebrity accounts on it are not fakes. So far, 1,100 boldfaced names have joined WhoSay.com, including actor Charlie Sheen and singer Lady Gaga from the United States and from India, Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan, actor Akshay Kumar and cricketer M.S. Dhoni. Mr. Khan and Mr. Kumar are among the site’s top 100 most searched names, WhoSay.com executives say. The India head of WhoSay.com is the 38 year-old Shailja Gupta, who also heads Red Chillies Entertainment USA, which is Mr. Khan’s production house. Ms. Gupta, who is based in New York City, says she used her relationship with Mr. Khan to enlist him as the first big name on the site out of India. It wasn’t a hard sell, she says, because the actor was already an active social media user and has 4.5 million fans between Twitter and Facebook. Ms. Gupta has brought on 45 names from India and plans to keep adding to the list. “Getting to the celebrities and telling them about the site is my biggest challenge right now when it comes to growing the names,” she said. “But once they learn about it, they are usually quick to sign up.” Apart from bringing on more Bollywood actors and sports players (cricket player Sachin Tendulkar is at the top of her list), Gupta’s hopes to add political figures like the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is already on Twitter and Sushma Swaraj, a member of Parliament representing the Bharatiya Janata Party who is also a regular Twitter user. E-mail Print Recommend Share TUMBLR DIGG LINKEDIN REDDIT PERMALINK Twitter NYCDesi, Facebook, so _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
