Karthik Srinivasan () is an Indian communications strategy consultant, music critic and blogger. He is the founder of the website ''ItwoFS'', which tracks

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

in Indian film music, and ''Milliblog'', where he reviews music albums.

Career

In 1999, Karthik began his career as a critic for ''The Music Magazine'', a defunct online magazine in

Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

. Later the same year, he founded ''ItwoFS'' (pronounced ), a website that tracks

in Indian film music. Karthik says the initialism IIFS, from which the website name derives, can stand either for "Inspirations in Indian Film Songs", or "Inspired Indian Film Songs". In 2005, he founded the music review website ''Milliblog'', where he reviews music albums within 100 words. The name of the blog was derived from Milliways, a restaurant featuring in the science fiction series ''

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' is a Science fiction comedy, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), radio sitcom broadcast over two series on BBC ...

''. Despite beginning his career in music reviewing, Karthik revealed he has no formal training in the same. Nonetheless, the popularity of ''Milliblog'' meant that he got to write for various publications such as ''

Bangalore Mirror ''Bangalore Mirror'' is an English-language daily published by The Times Group in Bangalore, India, as a compact newspaper. It is a deputed newspaper and is the second-largest circulating English daily in the city. In 2020, as part of its COVID ...

'', ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'', ''

The New Indian Express ''The New Indian Express'' is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Chennai-based Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as ''The Indian Express'', under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naidu ...

'' and ''

Film Companion Anupama Vinod Chopra () is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who served as the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival from 2015 to 2023. She is also the founder and editor of the now-defunct digital platform Film Compani ...

''. In 2008, Karthik created his first "work-related blog", ''Beast of Traal'', that is about Indian corporates and brands. The name of this blog is an homage to a character from ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. In 2009, Karthik was appointed as the head of digital strategy at Edelman India. In mid-June 2013, ''Milliblog'' crashed, although he was able to restore the website with the help of

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

. In November 2013, Karthik became the national lead of

Ogilvy & Mather Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City a ...

in India. He previously served as AVP of Corporate Communications at

Flipkart Flipkart Inc. is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as con ...

. Karthik's

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

profile was, between 2015 and 2017, the most viewed under "marketing and advertisement/communication". Karthik left Ogilvy & Mather in March 2018. In 2019, he authored a book on self-branding, titled ''Be Social: Building Brand You Online''.

Accolades

In 2015, Karthik won two awards: the Best Media Innovation- Social Media award at Emvie 2015, and Interactive- Creative Use of Data award (bronze) at the DMA Asia Echo Awards.

Personal life

Karthik's native language is Tamil. He speaks English, Hindi and Tamil fluently, has a general understanding of Kannada and Malayalam, and limited of Telugu. Karthik studied in college in

Salem, Tamil Nadu Salem () is a major city in Salem district, located on the banks of the Thirumanimutharu river in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu surrounded by mountains. Salem is the List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, fifth largest urban agglomerati ...

. He has been residing in Bengaluru for several years, is married and has two children. Karthik has stated that during his formative years he suffered from stammering, and medical treatments proved futile. Realising this was a mental issue rather than a physical one, he decided to pursue a career in corporate communication to overcome his issues.

References

{{reflist Indian male bloggers Indian music critics Living people People from Tamil Nadu Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)