Vokal first to launch Video Q&A in Vernacular Languages

Vokal is a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing platform for India’s non-English Internet users. The product is a few months old and already boasts of 500000+ questions with 1000s of questions pouring in everyday on varied topics that are very unique to India. Vokal is currently in Hindi and launching in multiple languages in the next few months itself. It also has a live video streaming feature where experts share their knowledge with users.

This week Vokal launched Video Questions & Answers in vernacular languages. Vokal is the first product in India to be bringing such a feature to vernacular Internet users. Video answering helps animate and humanize the Question & Answer format and make it a lot more interesting for the viewer.

 Users can ask questions using the voice / text option as usual and knowledge contributors now have the option to respond either in audio or video.

Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO & Co-founder, Vokal said “We’re excited about being the first in India to introduce Video Q&A in vernacular languages. Indians have shown a preference for video as a format on most global platforms. Our contributors are enjoying answering using video. It’s an addictive format and is showing healthy engagement. We are format agnostic and will continue innovating on offerings to suit the Indian vernacular Internet audience.”

Mayank Bidawatka, Co-founder, Vokal said “Video viewership is increasing worldwide. Even in India people spend a lot of time on YouTube and watching videos on social media platforms. Thanks to cheaper and faster mobile Internet Indians have taken to watching videos without worrying about running out of data packs. We got requests from our users to introduce video answering. A face lends credibility to the answer and helps the viewer get to know the contributor better. We invite Indian experts to contribute in their native language to bring knowledge parity for vernacular India. The language diversity issue is unique to India and we can’t expect a solution from anyone who never faced this diversity.”

Vokal, India’s largest vernacular knowledge sharing platform, recently raised a $6.5 million Series A that saw a participation from Kalaari Capital along with Shunwei Capital, 500 startups, Accel India & Blume Ventures too.