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Fast Company
15-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Inside the redesign that will make you actually want to use Nextdoor
Of all the social media platforms chasing users and flooding the internet with content, Nextdoor has always been a bit of an oddball. Rather than offering Instagram-style influence or Twitter-style followers or even Facebook-style endless engagement, Nextdoor has been focused on the earnest goal of connecting neighbors with each other. Since its founding in 2011, Nextdoor's purpose has been to be the digital window through which people can better interact with their own neighbors and neighborhoods, online and in real life. Today, Nextdoor is relaunching and unveiling a comprehensive redesign that positions it to actually make that possible. The new Nextdoor is moving away from its message-board past toward a more informative offering of geographically relevant real-time alerts, local news from vetted publishers, and a more accessible pool of neighborhood knowledge undergirded by artificial intelligence. The type of stuff you may have seen on Nextdoor over the past 14 years—notices about lost or found pets, questions about whether or not anyone else's power is out, that cranky neighbor who posts a bit too often—will largely be replaced by a feed of information that prioritizes relevance and utility. It's the first major update to the platform since its founding. Internally, Nextdoor executives are calling this a relaunch of both the product and the company as a whole. Founder returns The relaunch of Nextdoor has been in the works since last fall, a few months after founder Nirav Tolia returned to the role of CEO after five years away from the day-to-day operations of the company. Tolia tells Fast Company that he came back to Nextdoor with a renewed enthusiasm for its mission of connecting neighbors, but also a clearer view of how the platform had struggled to meet its main goal. 'The potential of the Nextdoor idea had not been realized by the existing product,' Tolia says. 'And the reason for that is that it's a very hard problem. Local word of mouth, which is really what Nextdoor is all about, is one of the last things remaining to be digitized.' That challenge hasn't stopped Nextdoor from continuing to grow, however. According to the company's end-of-2024 report, weekly active users of the platform grew 10% year over year, to 46.1 million in the fourth quarter, and the company made $247.3 million in revenue in 2024, up 13% from 2023. Despite these positive numbers, Tolia sees room for improvement. Others see the relaunch as a defining moment for the company . . . and a gamble. 'Our biggest challenge with the existing Nextdoor is that the content is not high-quality enough, it's not timely enough, and it's not comprehensive enough,' Tolia says. That's led the company to move away from solely user-generated content to more of a user-augmented content approach, supported by geotargeted news and alert feeds from credible outside sources. For the relaunch, Nextdoor has partnered with 3,500 news outlets to provide feeds of local news, and the platform will also automatically load real-time alerts from more than 5,000 local public safety, emergency, and utility agencies. It's also integrating AI into one of the more quintessential parts of the Nextdoor experience, which is neighbors seeking or providing information about local services, businesses, and events. The new AI-backed search feature draws from 14 years' worth of posts to answer user questions on things like restaurant recommendations, contractors, and family-friendly activities. Rather than just asking a question in the form of a post and hoping for a useful response, users can ask their question in the search field and get instant results. Speeding up this feedback loop is a key part of making Nextdoor more useful to people, Tolia says. Combining neighborhood knowledge and word-of-mouth recommendations with vetted information about news and local events could make Nextdoor into what Tolia calls a 'first-screen app.' New user experience, new user behavior A change this big requires users to shift how they interact with Nextdoor. Ahead of the relaunch project getting started, Tolia hired Georg Petschnigg as Nextdoor's chief design officer. A seasoned user experience designer, Petschnigg is best known for his time as head of product design at The New York Times, where he led a comprehensive redesign of the newspaper's app. For Nextdoor, he's bringing a news-centric sensibility and a focus on getting people the information they want as quickly as possible. Given Nextdoor's focus on neighborhoods, the main entry point for content on the platform is the user's location, which gets prominent placement in the top-left corner of the new Nextdoor app. 'The most important thing we want to signal is that this is about your neighborhood,' Petschnigg says. A tap in that upper-left corner takes users to a neighborhood map, which displays real-time alerts in the area, including extreme weather, fires, power outages, and police activity. If something important is happening that directly affects a user or their location, like a public safety emergency or a power outage, that information will be displayed automatically on a user's home screen. Other times, the home screen will be a mix of local news and posts from neighbors, all geotargeted for specific relevance in a given location. 'Up until now, neighbors had to report on what's happening, and they will do that,' Petschnigg says. 'But being able to bring in these verified information sources really supercharges the dynamic on the platform.' To spur active engagement, users can comment on the news items in this main feed. To try to avoid the cesspool that user comments sections can become, Nextdoor is using AI to create prompt questions that direct users to add their own reactions or information about the news shown in the feed. 'We want to encourage the habit to discuss the news or advance the news,' Petschnigg says. It's unusual for a design to put news and user commentary all on the same level, Petschnigg says, but he's hoping the focus on new stories that are relevant to a given neighborhood will become a starting point for deeper information sharing. 'We're hearing people saying they are interested in the news, but also that the conversation around the news is important,' he adds. 'Framing news as information that exists to serve a community is really, really important, and we want to do that right off the bat.' The other parts of the relaunched Nextdoor platform can be accessed by a simple floating navigation area at the bottom of the screen—an approach that's the basis of Apple's recently announced Liquid Glass user interface. Petschnigg says Nextdoor's UX was in the works long before Apple made this reveal, but the similarities are validating. 'We started understanding that if you want to have a user interface that lets the content breathe, you need to pare back the footprint of your navigational elements,' he says. The floating navigation bar makes the home screen and its news feed, the search function, and local recommendations (or 'faves') the three most important parts of the new Nextdoor. This user interface, and the platform's emphasis on bringing in reliable and vetted information sources, will redirect Nextdoor from being a free-for-all message board into something more deliberately informative. Focusing on the local—through alerts, geotargeted news, and an AI-assisted knowledge bank—is the way Tolia thinks Nextdoor can stand out from other social media platforms. 'There are only about a dozen apps that we rely on every single day. The fact that none of those dozen apps is related to our local life is just kind of mind-boggling to me,' Tolia says. 'Given that 30% of Americans are now working from home, where we live is more important than it's ever been. So I think our opportunity is bigger than it's ever been as well.' The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Time of India
02-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Gold Rush 2.0: Corporates strike it rich in ETF bonanza
Growing institutional confidence Live Events Inflation, risk hedge Tax tweaks (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Gold has been the traditional store of value for the ordinary Indian saver over centuries. Corporates, too, are now big investors in the safe-haven asset—rather, its paper derivative—and have an increasingly dominant share in gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs).Over the past five years, through which the value of gold per troy ounce surged 86% in dollar terms, corporate assets under management (AUM) in gold ETFs has climbed at a rapid 55% annually, reaching ₹36,154.5 crore by March 2025, showed Value Research share of total Gold ETF AUM has climbed to a record high of 61.4%—from 50% in March contrast, retail investors saw their share in the AUM more than halve—to 7.5% in 2025 from 16.1% in 2020. However, the number of retail folios jumped 37% year-on-year in 2025 to about 6.8 million, while their AUM climbed 39% to ₹4,440 crore through the year that witnessed the biggest price increase for the safe-haven metal on institutional buying investors include companies, family offices, trusts, and other organisations. Their growing participation is in the wake of the record-breaking rally in gold prices in the past corporate entities prefer investing in money market funds/liquid funds due to high liquidity and low risk. Liquid funds do not charge any entry or exit load, facilitating easy cash management. However, they are also looking at gold ETFs as a part of diversification of their investments as it is easier to hold gold in paper form.'They (institutions) are now more actively allocating to gold as part of diversified strategies aimed at managing risk and preserving capital,' said Vikram Dhawan, Head of Commodities and Fund Manager at Nippon India Mutual Fund. 'This shift reflects growing institutional confidence in Gold ETFs as an efficient and transparent vehicle for accessing bullion exposure within a regulated framework.'Gold prices crossed ₹1 lakh per 10 grams in June 2025, driven by safe-haven demand amid geopolitical tensions. At the end of March this year, 24-carat gold was priced at ₹89,000 per 10 grams, up nearly 30% from ₹69,000 a year earlier.A part of the corporate contribution to the total gold ETF AUM also includes retail investor contribution into the product through the Fund of Fund (FoF) category, which invests in these funds. Mutual funds' FoFs invest in other schemes or mutual funds report ETF holdings by investor type, the FoF investments into ETFs are typically classified under 'corporate' AUM and not under retail or HNI. This is because the holder of the ETF units is the FoF scheme itself, which is managed by a mutual fund.'The AUM figures primarily reflect corporate investments because retail investors usually access gold through Fund of Funds (FoFs), which in turn invest in Gold ETFs,' said Niranjan Avasthi, senior vice president, Edelweiss multi-asset funds, popular among investors, also allocate to gold ETFs. In cases where an AMC doesn't offer its own gold ETF, investments from its gold FoFs or multi-asset funds are routed into gold ETFs of other AMCs. These flows are classified as corporate AUM in the underlying gold ETFs, Avasthi that do not have their own gold ETF invest in such ETFs of other asset managers when money flows into their gold FoFs. As a result, this is recorded as corporate AUM in those gold ETFs, Avasthi higher flows from individual investors through gold FoFs are partly on account of the more favourable taxation since July 2024. The government, in its budget announcement, said long-term capital gains tax on gold and equity-oriented FoFs would be at 12.5% if held over 24 months.
Hindustan Times
22-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
FATF flags Pak case to sound global weapons funding alarm
A new report by the global financial crimes watchdog has cited India's seizure of equipment with military use bound for Pakistan in 2020 as evidence of widespread failures in preventing weapons proliferation financing, a problem that poses significant threats to world security and the integrity of the international financial system. FATF flags Pak case to sound global weapons funding alarm The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report, published late on Friday, found that 84% of assessed countries demonstrated inadequate controls despite what FATF described as the 'grave threat' posed by such activities. The report featured a case study detailing how Indian customs authorities in 2020 intercepted dual-use items that were mis-declared as medical equipment but were actually destined for Pakistan's ballistic missile programme. 'Indian custom authorities seized an Asian-flagged ship bound for Pakistan. During an investigation, Indian authorities confirmed that documents mis-declared the shipment's dual-use items,' the FATF report titled Complex Proliferation Financing and Sanctions Evasion Schemes stated. The items were listed as autoclaves, which are 'used for sensitive high energy materials and for insulation and chemical coating of missile motors.' A senior Indian government official described the study as 'the most comprehensive and updated survey of risks related to proliferation financing,' noting that it identifies Pakistan alongside North Korea and Iran as countries where proliferation financing risks 'are inherent.' The FATF categorised the incident as 'non-declaration of dual use goods under the prescribed export laws of the exporting country.' Though the report did not name the exporting country, the ship was intercepted in Indian waters while travelling from China's Jiangyin port to Pakistan's Karachi port, as reported by Indian media, including HT, at the time. What was not reported till now, and referenced in the FATF report, is the link of the shipment to Pakistan's National Development Complex, a defence and aerospace agency under the Pakistan government. 'The Bill of Lading of the seized cargo provided evidence of the link between the importer and the National Development Complex, which is involved in the development of long-range ballistic missiles,' the report stated. Officials said the timing strengthens India's position as it prepares to oppose the World Bank's $20 billion lending commitment to Pakistan over 10 years. India will oppose development funding to Pakistan at the World Bank's upcoming meetings, one of these people said, asking not to be named. 'India is not against multilateral agencies such as the IMF and World Bank extending financial support for the development of the people of Pakistan. However, there is ample evidence that these development funds are diverted by Islamabad from development projects to arm purchase and terror funding,' said one of these officials, asking not to be named. In May, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman contacted IMF leadership directly, presenting evidence of Pakistan's alleged misuse of development funds for military purchases. Despite India's intervention, the IMF executive board approved a $1.4 billion loan for Pakistan under climate resilience funding, though it later imposed 11 strict conditions following New Delhi's objections. 'Pakistan is unlikely to meet those conditions and thus it would not be able to avail the IMF funding,' the official added. Citing data available with multilateral agencies, this official explained: 'Pakistan spends on average around 18% of its general budget on 'defence affairs and services', while even the conflict-affected countries spend on average far less (10-14% of their general budget expenditure). Further, Pakistan's arms imports increased dramatically from 1980 to 2023 by over 20% on average in the years when it received IMF disbursements in comparison to years when it did not receive the same'. A second official said the latest report very nearly 'clubs Pakistan with rogue countries like North Korea.' 'This report will help India in pushing it for placing Pakistan in the grey list again.' The report also comes days after FATF condemned the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, saying it could not have occurred without means to move funds between terrorist supporters, which Indian officials described as a positive step in New Delhi's renewed attempts to put Pakistan back on the grey list. The FATF report highlighted significant vulnerabilities across the global financial system in countering the financing of weapons of mass destruction. It revealed that only 16% of countries worldwide have demonstrated effective implementation of UN sanctions designed to prevent weapons of mass destruction financing. The report cited North Korea as 'the most significant actor' in proliferation financing — having 'generated billions of dollars through cyberattacks targeting virtual asset-related companies, such as the theft of USD 1.5 billion from ByBit in February 2025,' according to the FBI. The report identified four primary methods used to evade sanctions: employing intermediaries, concealing beneficial ownership, exploiting virtual assets and manipulating shipping sectors. In the 2020 incident, the merchant vessel Da Cui Yun, sailing under Hong Kong flag, was stopped by India's customs department at Kandla port in Gujarat on February 3 for wrongly declaring an autoclave as an 'industrial dryer.' An autoclave -- a device that uses high-pressure steam and heat to sterilise materials -- is used in hospitals for sterilising medical equipment, but also helps in the manufacture of specialised materials for missile components under controlled high-pressure and temperature conditions. The interception was following an intelligence tip-off, and experts from the Defence Research and Development Organisation, including nuclear scientists, examined the 18x4-metre autoclave and determined it was dual-use equipment that could serve civilian or military purposes. The vessel was allowed to leave after the autoclave was seized. Reports suggested the Da Cui Yun had made multiple voyages from China to Karachi via Indian ports carrying machinery. The report underscores that 'unless both the public and private sectors urgently bolster technical compliance and effectiveness, those seeking to finance WMD proliferation will continue to exploit weaknesses in existing controls.'
NDTV
07-06-2025
- General
- NDTV
Sugar Rs 5,000, Oil Rs 4,000: Gazans Blame Israel, They Say It's Hamas
New Delhi: On the morning of Eid al-Adha, prayers across the Gaza Strip were conducted not in mosques, but in the rubble of what used to be homes, schools, and religious institutions. A ceasefire is not in sight, and neither is a meal. The traditions that usually mark this holiday, sacrificial meat, communal feasts, and gifts for children, are unrecognisable now. Instead, a singular item dominates conversations: food, or the lack of it. A recent viral post from Gaza featuring the biscuit, Parle-G, claimed that they are being sold at over 24 euros, which is approximately Rs 2,400. Like the biscuits, most goods sold in Gaza's markets have become unaffordable to nearly everyone. A list obtained by NDTV from inside Gaza documents the going rates for basic staples. Converted into Indian rupees (1 new Israeli shekel = Rs 24.57), it reads like this: 1 litre of cooking oil: 170 shekel (approx. Rs 4,177) 1 kilogram of sugar: 200 shekel (approx. Rs 4,914) 1 kilogram of milk powder: 35 shekel (approx. Rs 860) 1 kilogram of flour: 60 shekel (approx. Rs 1,474) 1 kilogram of salt: 20 shekel (approx. Rs 491) 1 kilogram of okra: 45 shekel (approx. Rs 1,106) 1 kilogram of duck meat: 30 shekel (approx. Rs 737) 1 kilogram of tomatoes: 45 shekel (approx. Rs 1,106) 1 kilogram of onions: 180 shekel (approx. Rs 4,423) 1 kilogram of potatoes: 80 shekel (approx. Rs 1,966) 1 kilogram of brinjal: 35 shekel (approx. Rs 860) 1 kilogram of lemon: 60 shekel (approx. Rs 1,474) 1 kilogram of lentils: 35 shekel (approx. Rs 860) 1 cup of coffee: 180 shekel (approx. Rs 4,423) 1 box of goat meat: 200 shekel (approx. Rs 4,914) Prices like these are unthinkable in a territory where virtually no one has an income. Israel Say It's Hamas Israel insists Hamas is hijacking aid. Speaking exclusively with NDTV, Israeli embassy spokesperson Guy Nir said, "There are masked gunmen who are Hamas, who are shooting at the Gazans because Hamas doesn't want this operation to succeed. The thing is, for the first year and a half, most of the aid trucks that went into Gaza were looted. Hamas looted about 80 per cent of all trucks." According to Mr Nir, Hamas is selling the contents to civilians at inflated prices. This system, he claims, allowed Hamas to exert economic and political control over the population. In northern Gaza, Israel issued a warning on Friday that it would launch "intensive operations" in areas from which rockets had reportedly been fired. The military said four of its soldiers died earlier in Khan Younis when explosives collapsed a Hamas compound. Five others were injured. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) now projects that by September, nearly 500,000 people in Gaza will be experiencing "catastrophic food insecurity", the highest level of hunger categorisation before famine. "The amount of humanitarian aid that came into Gaza during the first year and a half was astronomical," Mr Nir said. "We delivered over 3,500 calories per person per day. If everybody ate everything we brought in, they would be fat.
NDTV
07-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
NDTV Exclusive: Who Feeds Gaza? Inside The US-Israel Aid Distribution Model
New Delhi: Nearly all of Gaza's livestock has been wiped out. Local meat production has collapsed. Food shipments remain heavily restricted. And while Israel blames the Hamas militant group for hijacking aid, many humanitarian agencies say Israel's blockade is strangling the civilian population in the besieged Palestinian enclave. Caught in the middle are Gaza's 2.3 million residents, whose access to essentials increasingly depends on how logistics, security, and politics play out in Jerusalem. Speaking exclusively with NDTV, Israeli embassy spokesperson Guy Nir gave a rundown on how aid distribution works in a region that has seen near-total devastation ever since Hamas' multi-frontal attack on Israel on October 7 in 2023. Mechanics Of Aid Delivery: Who Distributes What? At the core of the new aid structure is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed non-profit organisation that Israel says it supports but does not control. "The people who are distributing the aid are the GHF," said Mr Nir. "The IDF - the Israeli Defence Force - is coordinating their entry and security while they're in Gaza. There are four distribution centres. GHF is an American-backed NGO. Israel is not the one distributing the aid, but we are 100 per cent facilitating and arranging the security of the GHF to do this." NDTV Exclusive | How Rs 5 Indian Biscuit Is Being Sold For Rs 2,400 In Gaza A recent Reuters report claimed violence at aid delivery sites, specifically an incident in Rafah where local health officials say Israeli fire killed at least three Palestinians near a GHF site. "Both the GHF and the IDF released statements that there was no shooting in or around the aid distribution centres. These reports are misleading," he said. "There are masked gunmen who are Hamas, who are shooting at the Gazans because Hamas doesn't want this operation to succeed. The thing is, for the first year and a half, most of the aid trucks that went into Gaza were looted. Hamas looted about 80 per cent of all trucks." According to Mr Nir, Hamas is selling the contents to civilians at inflated prices. This system, he claims, allowed Hamas to exert economic and political control over the population. "The amount of humanitarian aid that came into Gaza during the first year and a half was astronomical," Mr Nir said. "We delivered over 3,500 calories per person per day. If everybody ate everything we brought in, they would be fat. The new distribution system allows us to give the aid directly to the people, without Hamas being involved." Preventing Aid Theft: The "New" Distribution System Israel had suspended traditional UN food deliveries. Instead, an alternative was introduced on May 27 called the Secure Distribution Site 1 (SDS1) model, developed by the GHF. "We went to a new method with the GHF," Mr Nir explained This method, according to Mr Nir, involves smaller, family-sized boxes rather than bulk commodities like 100-kg rice bags, which were more vulnerable to mass looting. "We're talking about one box with, say, rice, pasta, of oil and other materials, enough food for one family for one week," Mr Nir said. "Looting these small boxes is much more difficult. We are still seeing some looting from Hamas, but maybe 5 per cent or less." He conceded that the system is "not perfect," but said it is an improvement. The Blockade And International Criticism When pressed on international criticism of Israel's blockade and its humanitarian implications, Mr Nir responded with a redirection. "The responsibility for the people of Gaza is Hamas - like the responsibility for the people of Israel is the IDF," he said. He accused Hamas of having spent 20 years diverting foreign aid to build "underground tunnels" and fund its "terror infrastructure", while neglecting education, health, and infrastructure for the civilian population. "Israel cares more about the Gaza population than Hamas," he said. "Israel is the one providing the aid, Hamas is just shooting them." On the matter of Gazan access to work inside Israel, he cited a key turning point. "Up to October 6, 20,000 Gazans had work permits and came to Israel daily. They were getting Israeli salaries, helping their families, their economy," he said. "October 7 changed all of that." Mr Nir rejected the idea that Israel should be held responsible for the economic and humanitarian toll since then. "Why should we allow terrorists to come into Israel, as we did up until October 6?" he asked, Local Partners: Safe Reach Solutions The SDS1, located in Rafah, features caged corridors forcing Palestinians into narrow queues, guarded perimeters manned by Safe Reach Solutions, a US-based private security firm, which has been accused of carrying out intelligence operations in Gaza using Israeli data. "There are four aid distributions in Gaza. The GHF comes every day with IDF security to access these locations, prepare the distribution, and then the gates are open to allow all the population to come and collect the boxes. At the end of the day, we close the centre and go back across the border to Israel." On SRS, Mr Nir offered only limited insights. "From what I understand, they are responsible for facilitating the distribution and protecting the area so that it can be done safely, and to prevent ammunition from reaching Hamas. Responding to reports that SRS is involved in intelligence operations, as suggested in some Israeli and international media, he said: "That's part of the responsibility. But from what I understand, they are not a defence force." What Happens After Hamas? According Gaza officials, at least 4,402 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18 after a brief ceasefire announcement. The subsequent military action has taken the war's overall death count, according to Hamas, to 54,677. "The majority of them are Hamas terrorists and operatives, and victims of Hamas' misfired rockets," said Mr Nir. "We are open to multiple solutions. We are not going to govern Gaza. We don't want to be in Gaza," he explained. "[The Palestinians] need to govern themselves, as long as it's not a terror organisation that is terrorising its own citizens and terrorising us in the process. As long as there is no threat to Israel, we are okay with that." There have been reports of Israel considering clan-based governance models, similar to what exists in some Gulf states, but Mr Nir said Israel would not interfere with internal arrangements, so long as they ensure stability and security. "They just need to find something that works and is of no harm to their neighbours," he said. Asked whether Israel would engage with a reformed Palestinian political body in Gaza, one that excludes Hamas, Mr Nir said: "Of course. We want Gaza to be independent. We want Gaza to be successful. We don't want Gaza to be a threat to Israel. We are willing to cooperate with a reasonable government on their side."
