This is an area where Wattpad has found some success. In the U.S., one of the stories on its platform became the Netflix teen hit \u201cThe Kissing Booth<\/a>,\u201d and other stories have become projects at Hulu, AwesomenessTV, eOne, Sony, SYFY, iflix, Universal Cable Productions (NBCU), and elsewhere. The company also just launched its own books division<\/a> to better capitalize on bringing its online stories to print.<\/p>\n \u201cMillions of Indian readers and writers have already found a home Wattpad,\u201d said Sharma, in a statement. \u201cTimes Bridge and The Times Group have an unmatched media and entertainment portfolio, and connections with some of India\u2019s most-respected authors and cultural figures. We\u2019re excited to work together to create new opportunities for Indian storytellers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Today, Wattpad\u2019s app supports a number of local languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Marathi, and Oriya.<\/p>\n To find the stories that become popular, Wattpad relies on a combination of human curation and technology \u2013 the latter with its Story DNA machine learning system that helps to identify the standouts by deconstructing things like sentence structure, word use, grammar and other factors that contribute to popularity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to work with Times Bridge expand our footprint in the region and create more opportunities for India\u2019s rich literary community to tell their stories, reaching new audiences in India and around the world,\u201d said Wattpad co-founder and CEO Allen Lau, in a statement.<\/p>\n Wattpad didn\u2019t disclose Times Group\u2019s investment. The firm has previously partnered with other tech companies in India, and has investments in Uber, Airbnb, Coursera, Houzz, MUBI, Smule, and others.<\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/QSqw0Ov3UOg\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wattpad is further expanding into Asia with a new partnership and undisclosed strategic investment from Times Bridge, the global investment arm of the Times Group in India. The deal aims <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-14435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wordpressdynamos.com\/timesofnewscdn\/blog\/8d35b_TimesBridge2.png?resize=350%2C204&ssl=1\")
India has been a more recent focus for Wattpad, following its \u00a0$51 million raise from Tencent.<\/a> Soon after, the company appointed its first Head of Asia for Wattpad Studios<\/a>, Dexter Ong. And it also recently hired its first GM of India,<\/a> Devashish Sharma, who has been working with local partners to turn its stories into movies, TV, digital and print in the region.<\/p>\n