NaMo ‘Twitter’ gives orange tick, badges to active users

Being active on it can get you badges likes ‘The Know It All’ and ‘Super Fan’ and if you are sufficiently aggressive in posting on it, you can even get an orange tick against your profile.
This ‘My Network’ feature was updated in the Narendra Modi mobile application in May after being hosted on iOS platform by Apple CEO Tim Cook in a meeting with the Prime Minister, and the Android platform soon after.
In nutshell, it is a private universe with a captive audience — the NaMo app has nearly 2 million downloads so far making it one of the most popular political apps worldwide.
Its new highlight is ‘My Wall’ where one can see posts made by ministers, MPs, BJP party and citizens and one can make posts too – there is no 140-character limit as on Twitter.
While building a profile, the app asks you for your contact details and profession. One can follow people who become ‘Friends’, ‘repost’ their posts (instead of retweet as on Twitter) on My Wall, ‘like’ the same and comment on it.
All these acts earn you specific ‘Activity Points’ whose increasing count can earn you “badges which be your pride and the world’s envy”, as per NaMo App. A certain threshold earns you an orange tick, reminiscent of the blue verified tick on Twitter.
All ministers and MPs on the app have orange ticks nevertheless. “This is not a verification. We think as a recognition we must acknowledge people who are aggressive contributors to the app.
This is PM’s way of acknowledging their engagement with him via this app,” Amit Malviya, National In-charge of BJP’s Information & Technology, says. He points out that Twitter “does not rank one for engagement”.
The NaMo app, Malviya says, is “just a more cohesive way of getting people to engage with the political process, in this case the PM himself” and “fosters a personal connect”, is how Malviya puts it.
There is a healthy competition among ministers to be active on the platform with posts of their initiatives. BJP party has the most Activity Points at 6,978, Modi had notched up 5,261 while among the ministers, Piyush Goel had the highest 4,887 points.
On attaining 5,000 points, one gets the badge of ‘Super Fan’, 2,000 points get you ‘The Know it All’ and 1,000 points get one ‘The Explorer’ badge. There are 1-5 points to be earned for each share, comment, like or writing directly to PM. Modi has 6511 followers here, a far cry from the 21 million followers on Twitter.
Malviya says this could be because the feature is very new. “It is a feature within the app that allows people to create their own communities. It allows them to do various activities like organising events, hosting a forum. It is creating a virtual network of sorts within their community. Twitter and Facebook are open mediums which allow for much wider interaction. However, the information that is provided here regarding governance, regarding government initiatives or PM programmes, makes it a comprehensive platform where someone can pick the information and share within,” Malviya told ET.
He said it allows people to grow their own influence and earn badges and an orange tick after attaining a certain activity level. “This is a means for the people to connect directly with PM. He routinely gets the reports of activity on the network and views them.