During the deadly second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter rival Koo is launching a slew of measures, including making it easier for people to find leads for hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and other services.

For improved exposure, the social media site will encourage potential plasma donors to wear badges on their profile pictures, and a new feature will alert users about vaccine availability.

Bangalore based Koo (also known as KooApp) is an Indian microblogging and social networking service that was founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka last year to allow users to express themselves and interact on the platform in Indian languages. It supports a variety of languages, including Hindi, Telugu, and Bengali.

Aprameya Radhakrishna told that as the second wave became more intense, the platform saw people from all over the world contributing to knowledge about bed and oxygen availability.

"We put all the people who were talking and giving information about COVID-related resources in one place...we got some of those profiles and put in under a section called COVID warriors," he said.

Aprameya believes that having all of the data in one place makes it easier for others to search for and access the information, particularly given the current crisis.

A new automated tab has been added to the homegrown microblogging site, which collects all mentions of COVID-19, vaccination, beds, and other tools into one place for users to sift through.

"We are also trying to automate information around vaccine availability...We are also enabling some badges to put on users' profile pictures saying they want to donate blood or plasma along with their blood group, so that people in the network are easily able to find them," he said.

These efforts are being done to ensure that Koo as a platform can facilitate information and contribute to the community, he added.

The upsurge in infections during the second wave of the pandemic has resulted in a shortage of medical oxygen and beds in many nations.

Facebook and Twitter have emerged as lifelines, linking those in need of oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, plasma donors, and ventilators with potential donors through social media platforms.

Facebook has also announced a partnership with the Indian government to launch a vaccine finder tool on its mobile app in India, which will help people locate vaccination clinics in their region.

A COVID-19 SOS page has also been set up on Twitter to help surface information from those offering or requesting urgent assistance during this crisis. It's also ramping up its efforts to disseminate reliable COVID-19 information, with home Timeline prompts in English and Hindi featuring the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 vaccines.

Koo's Radhakrishna said information around vaccine availability is already being shared on Telegram groups through technology linkages with CoWIN.

...we are talking to some of those engineers (working on such solutions) and seeing whether they can push it to Koo as well...so whenever a vaccine slot is available, it will inform users, he added.

Koo received $4.1 million in Series A funding from Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures, Dream Incubator, and 3one4 Capital earlier this year.

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