Latest news with #Messaging
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Business Standard
11 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Meta appoints Arun Srinivas as India business head and managing director
Meta has announced the appointment of Arun Srinivas as the new managing director and head for India. This development comes on the heels of Sandhya Devanathan assuming an expanded role, where she now leads both India and South East Asia. Srinivas will formally step into his new role on July 1, 2025, and will continue to report to Devanathan. In this expanded capacity, Srinivas will be responsible for aligning Meta's business, innovation, and revenue priorities to better serve its partners and clients in India. His mandate includes driving the long-term growth of Meta's operations in the country and deepening its strategic relationships with advertisers, developers, and key industry stakeholders. Srinivas is currently the director and head of ads business in India, a role in which he has led Meta's collaboration with major advertisers and agencies. Since joining the company in 2020, he has been instrumental in pushing forward key revenue drivers such as AI, Reels, and Messaging. With nearly 30 years of experience in sales and marketing, Srinivas has previously held senior leadership roles at top companies including Hindustan Unilever, Reebok, Ola, and WestBridge Capital. His background brings a rich blend of brand building, digital transformation, and growth-focused strategies to the table. Announcing his elevation, Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President (India and South East Asia), Meta, said, 'As India continues to be at the forefront of economic growth and innovation, we are excited to have Arun at the helm of our efforts in this critical market. Meta in India is leading the way in AI adoption, WhatsApp, and Reels, and Arun's impressive track record of building high-performing teams, driving product innovation, and fostering strong partnerships makes him the ideal leader to drive Meta's continued investment in the country. He will continue to work closely with me as we scale the business in India.'
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Business Standard
14 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Meta appoints Arun Srinivas as India managing director and business head
Meta has announced the appointment of Arun Srinivas as the new managing director and head for India. This development comes on the heels of Sandhya Devanathan assuming an expanded role, where she now leads both India and South East Asia. Srinivas will formally step into his new role on July 1, 2025, and will continue to report to Devanathan. In this expanded capacity, Srinivas will be responsible for aligning Meta's business, innovation, and revenue priorities to better serve its partners and clients in India. His mandate includes driving the long-term growth of Meta's operations in the country and deepening its strategic relationships with advertisers, developers, and key industry stakeholders. Srinivas is currently the director and head of ads business in India, a role in which he has led Meta's collaboration with major advertisers and agencies. Since joining the company in 2020, he has been instrumental in pushing forward key revenue drivers such as AI, Reels, and Messaging. With nearly 30 years of experience in sales and marketing, Srinivas has previously held senior leadership roles at top companies including Hindustan Unilever, Reebok, Ola, and WestBridge Capital. His background brings a rich blend of brand building, digital transformation, and growth-focused strategies to the table. Announcing his elevation, Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President (India and South East Asia), Meta, said, 'As India continues to be at the forefront of economic growth and innovation, we are excited to have Arun at the helm of our efforts in this critical market. Meta in India is leading the way in AI adoption, WhatsApp, and Reels, and Arun's impressive track record of building high-performing teams, driving product innovation, and fostering strong partnerships makes him the ideal leader to drive Meta's continued investment in the country. He will continue to work closely with me as we scale the business in India.'
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Get real-time updates as GCC adds more digital boards
Chennai: To boost real-time public communication and reinforce its smart city infrastructure, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) will install 100 additional Variable Messaging Displays (VMDs) across the city. These digital boards will provide live updates on traffic, emergency alerts, and civic information. The new VMDs will be set up in high-footfall areas, including parks, beaches, playgrounds, and govt buildings. Operated daily from 7am to 10pm, each unit will have dedicated time slots during peak hours for public interest messages such as weather warnings, health campaigns, and disaster alerts. A senior GCC official said a feasibility study will be carried out to identify optimal locations based on visibility, foot traffic, and communication effectiveness. The expansion follows a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, with commercial advertisements shown during non-critical hours. The System Integrator (SI), tasked with installation and maintenance, will manage ad slots and recover costs through ad revenue. "The 97 existing VMDs demonstrated both public utility and commercial viability. Between Sept 2024 and March 2025, the SI generated about 15 crore in ad revenue. With the new rollout, we expect an additional 12 crore annually," the official said. An earlier initiative to track real-time ambulance movement on VMS boards at 16 major junctions, including Poonamallee High Road, remains operational. However, the proposed expansion to 40 locations has not yet materialised. To support the rollout, GCC allocated 6 crore in the 2025–2026 budget. This includes infrastructure costs such as electricity connections and cabling, estimated at 85,000 per unit. Annual power costs are projected at 1.44 lakh per VMD.
Android Authority
6 days ago
- Android Authority
Google Messages is finally getting group chat icon customization and RCS tags for contacts
TL;DR Google has finally announced that custom icon support for RCS group chats will soon be available in Google Messages. The company has also confirmed that Google Messages will soon allow users to snooze chats. In addition, the messaging app will clearly label contacts with RCS enabled. Although Google has been working on adding custom icon support to RCS group chats in Google Messages for quite some time, the feature has yet to reach users. We first spotted references to the feature in a teardown late last year and gave you an early look at it this February. Last month, Google Messages started testing custom icon support in RCS group chats with a few users. Now, Google has confirmed that the feature will soon reach all users. Google announced a couple of new Android ecosystem updates alongside the Android 16 stable release today. These include a few upcoming changes for Google Messages, including custom icon support in RCS group chats. The feature will allow users to change the icon for existing RCS group chats and give them the option to choose a custom icon when setting up a new group chat. In addition to custom icon support, Google has confirmed that the messaging app will receive two more useful improvements we spotted earlier this year: notification snoozing and RCS tags for contacts. The notification snoozing feature will let users temporarily mute notifications for specific chats. Although Google's blog post doesn't share more details, we've previously seen that this feature will allow users to snooze notifications for 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, or always. Chats with snoozed notifications will show a clock icon on the home screen and a pop-up highlighting the snooze duration within the chat. The feature will also give users the option to allow notifications from snoozed group chats if they're @mentioned in the chat. The RCS tags feature will add a tag next to contacts with RCS enabled, making it easier for users to tell whether they're starting an RCS chat or sending a regular SMS. The feature will also work for contacts with multiple numbers, and only show the tag next to the number that has RCS enabled. Google has not shared a release timeline for these new Google Messages features, but we expect them to roll out in the coming days. We'll update this post as soon as they're widely available. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
