When Kumu was launched as a livestreaming platform last year, the majority of livestreams were user-generated content (UGC) – everyday Filipinos who wanted to share their lives, talents, and passions to an audience of their peers.
The tide is turning, in a manner of speaking. In addition to the bevy of UGC livestreams from Filipinos around the world, more and more celebrities are embracing Kumu as a new way to connect with fans. One of the most recent additions is Mo Twister, a disc jockey who has built his audience to this point via radio and online shows, who brings his flagship program “GoodTimes with Mo” as a podcast to Kumu airing on Sunday at 9:30 pm. He has operated his show from the United States – Kumu provides him with yet another valuable connection to an audience of Filipinos in the Philippines and indeed around the world.
The fact that Mo Twister is now turning to a mobile-first livestreaming platform shows how far Kumu has come: It is even converting media personalities from traditional channels over to its thriving “Kumunity.” Joining Mo Twister on Kumu are gamer Suzzysaur and content creator community Rumble Royale, who stream about the lifestyle-side of their gaming careers and lives.
Gaming, of course, is a livestreaming category pioneered and popularized by streaming platform Twitch in the United States. The fact that Kumu is attracting seasoned gamers to share more personal content attests to the platform’s ability to disrupt the industry along not only cultural, but also categorical lines.
Kumu co-founder and Chief Strategist Rexy Dorado is proud of these new additions.
“Our goal at Kumu has always been to be the hub for Filipino creativity. This encompasses both up-and-coming user talents as well as established personalities from more traditional media channels. That more and more celebrities are recognizing the power of Kumu is further proof that we are well on our way to building the creative hub that Filipinos need and deserve,” said Dorado, who founded Kumu with Roland Ros, Andrew Pineda, Clare Ros, and Angelo Mendez in 2017.
Apart from the focus on Filipino creativity, celebrities are inevitably drawn to Kumu due to the size of its audience. At more than 500,000 users and counting, Kumu is not only the fastest-growing livestreaming platform in the Philippines, but the largest. Kumu, in short, has gotten too big for forward-thinking celebrities to ignore.
Celebrity adoption of Kumu mirrors the early days of Twitter. Like Kumu, Twitter’s earliest adopters were normal users, but over time, the platform increasingly attracted celebrities, beginning most notably with Ashton Kutcher’s victory over CNN in a race to be the platform’s first million follower account (spoiler: Ashton won).
Is a similar inflection point in store for Kumu? KC Montero, Kumu’s Vice President of Marketing, is hopeful, but shared one caveat.
“While we’re proud that we’ve attracted established personalities to Kumu, we also want to create our own celebrities. We want unrecognized talents across the Filipino community to join Kumu, find an audience, and build their fan base. That’s our message to Filipinos everywhere: You can launch your career as a content creator right here on Kumu,” said KC Montero.
