Missing canteen and adda? With Scenes by Avalon, you can do all that and more, virtually!

What do you miss the most about college? The tea! Not the beverage, silly. The one that you spill! But not just gossip honestly, it's the conversation, the feel, the whole atmosphere that's been stolen from us, made us almost premature adults. 

Ugh, pandemic. You might have robbed us of our in-person experiences, but we have only grown wiser, learnt to use the digital space to the fullest extent. And Scenes by Avalon is aiming to be the frontrunner in this specific space — by being the virtual community space you need.

Three friends and entrepreneurs-turned-social-media-influencers Varun Mayya, Shashank Udupa and Abhinav Arora were making the most of social media to put out meaningful content out there. Take Abhinav, for example. If you are looking for gyaan on the online world, check out his Instagram handle @abhinav.aurora. He has amassed over 50.4k followers till date. "'If you are building your audience on someone's else's platform, it's akin to building castles in the air' — we kept thinking about this particular line and that's when we built a community on Accord (a collaborative platform) in August 2020 and started shifting all our members there," says Abhinav who is the Co-founder and CMO of Avalon Meta. Titled Avalon Meta Virtual Campus, they would talk, chill and discuss. But a community of just 50,000 still wasn't strong enough and then, turns out the platform wasn't as user-friendly in the first place. So they decided to make their own!

The poster

This is how Scenes by Avalon happened. You can form your own community space here, not only if you are a student, but also if you are a start-up or a club. You can text or hold audio discussions à la Clubhouse. But don't compare them with Clubhouse! "Clubhouse was popular in the US. Now, the mania is dwindling there and rising in Asia. Soon it will fizzle out here too because Clubhouse runs on the phenomena of ‘spontaneous togetherness’, which in itself is an oxymoron. You can even play games like chess or ludo. Basically, chill scenes are back again. Everyone has to be there at the same moment. But togetherness can't be planned. There is no residue of the conversation," explains the 26-year-old. That's why, you can record audio conversations on Scenes and there are some permanent features, like posts.

The strongest feature of this platform is its moderation policy. The admin of every community can appoint several moderators. "That's because each community space is like a social media platform of its own," explains Abhinav who pursued his Bachelor of Technology in Computer and Communication Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology. In this way, all complaints can be taken care of by the community itself instead of waiting for someone higher up the chain to resolve the issue. Whether it's about banning a person or restricting them from messaging. This makes it all the more safer for the women too, who often have to put up with the worst side of social media. In this way, you will have a curated community with no mischief-makers playing party poopers.

Exploring their features a little more, it seems like Scenes by Avalon offers the best of all worlds. Because you can communicate in every way possible. A point to note about their forums is this - it's just like a timeline of a social media platform. Post videos, upvote or downvote posts and everything else in between. Also, remember those confession pages back in the day on Facebook? The same feature is also available on this platform. Then there is a media space, think of it more as a notice board. Post useful links, videos or any other helpful material.
 

Avalon Meta is a startup that combines higher education and competitive gaming. Before this, Abhinav founded Soul Journal, a creative start-up   

There are all sorts of people using the platform — social media influencers; people who have specific interests like technology, science who want to share information with other kindred spirits and so many more. Take 30-year-old Manisha Sharma for instance. The Scene this Delhiite launched on the platform is called Mental Health. For over a month now, this certified psychologist has been creating content around mental health and over 429 community members are finding value in what she posts. Then there is the 22-year-old from Jaipur Arohi Dixit who runs Musical Nights with Arohi. All the way from Jaipur, she creates music covers for over 745 members of her community and conducts sessions twice or even thrice a week.  

The scope of using Scenes by Avalon is multifold. It's basically like having a club of your own. That's why, when the platform launches properly in the next one month, currently, there was only a soft launch that attracted over 1,500 users, they want to target college clubs first! "So come on, just chill with your friends, play or talk and have discussions. It is over these that friendships happen," shares Abhinav. Touché.       

For more on them check out scenes.avalon