Lyka and Kooha, apps designed for Filipinos

THIS week saw the launch of two “new” social media apps purportedly designed for Filipino netizens. I enclosed the word “new” in quotation marks because one of them is in reality a three-year-old app but was relaunched supposedly for the Philippines.

Kooha is a social sensing app designed and developed by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) and formally launched last March 30. Lyka, meanwhile, is a social media application that converts content into cash. Its chief executive officer, Ryan Baird, in a CNN Philippines interview on March 24, claimed that they used the Philippines as a launching pad for the product.