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Saturday, August 31, 2013

LINE: A Social Entertainment Platform with emoticon

LINE is a Japanese company which launched its mobile apps in India. The line users can send messages, images, video, audio media messages and make free VOIP calls. Its family of 52 apps — which includes games, tools, communication services and photo apps for iOS and Android — have been downloaded more than 290 million times — Line Camera alone has clocked 48 million downloads worldwide. Line is competing against WeChat and Whatsapp. Few months back we saw China made WeChat  targeting Indian using celebrities like Parineeti Chopra and Varun Dhawan. 

LINE initially started in Japan as a text-messaging service allowing users to text-chat with other LINE users or have group-chats with multiple users. Once the app is installed it’s easy to know which of your friends also has the app installed as LINE simply looks at the numbers in your address book and cross-checks them with registered LINE users. If a user has friends who are already on LINE, at registration the app will suggest friends to add to your LINE-friends network.  Three months after its launch, the ability to make free voice calls from smartphones was also added to LINE. If users have a flat-data plan, or are connected to WiFi, all calls to other LINE users will cost nothing. This is obviously of great appeal and due to the simplicity of registering with an existing phone number rather than having to give an email address, LINE is also giving Skype a run for its money.

Line is perhaps best known for its virtual stickers – often featuring cute and quirky cartoon characters – that people can send as messages. Line is making over $10 million (1 billion yen) per month selling stickers, the rich emoticon-like content.  Stickers are larger-scale emoticons which are primarily used for instant messaging (IM) chats. They are popular among some, particularly in Asia, because they help convey emotion, and are more visual than blocks of text. Stickers typically come in packs of up to a dozen, most of which are free to download and use, but some services charge $1/$2 for premium packs — which may be customized for brands, products or limited edition events. Once downloaded or bought, they appear as an option in the text box, and are published when pressed.










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