Keeping in touch with your emoticons

MANILA, Philippines - What do the disparate images of ice cream cones, candy canes, a lovestruck bear, a farting rabbit, and a bat-wielding duck have in common?

Well, you can now send them through your iPhone or Android smartphone as part of a free message. Line offers free text messaging capability and calls, along with gaming and social networking features for users of all stripes and inclinations.

A product of South Korea-based NHN Corp. (the largest Internet company there), Line is now being actively marketed in the Philippines, the acknowledged texting capital of the world.

“The country is home to technologically savvy people who know exactly what they want to get out of their smartphone apps. Filipinos will get much more than simple calls and text messages with Line,” explained Lee Jin-woo, Line Plus general manager, at the press launch of Line.

“Line is a mobile messenger, but compared to other messengers, it’s more like a mobile service platform. These are the built-in service features. We have a very simple and neat user interface,” added Lee.

Line’s group chat feature, for instance, can support up to 100 users at the same time, he said, which makes it an ideal tool for presentations and large meetings of people from various locations. Line also accommodates high-quality video calls and video messages (dependent on Wi-Fi or connection speed of course), along with location services.

“In many countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand,” said Lee, “many companies are using Line for their work. In Spain, we have 12 million users. Line is getting very popular in many countries. We also have a lot of users in the South American region.”

The biggest unique value proposition of Line, however, is its every-growing selection of message-ready “stickers” — graphics numbering an excess of 500 sets that can be bought through Google Play or the App Store.

“Colorful, quirky, and fun, Line’s stickers are highly expressive — showing a slew of moods and emotions from its four main characters: Brown, Cony, Moon, and James. The app also offers a wide range of stickers depicting various activities as well as pop culture icons,” goes a Line release. Line even features a number of Psy cartoons should you be inclined to send them to your family, friends, and even the boss.

“With Line, you don’t even need words to be able to share thoughts and feelings, and communicate vividly. You just need to pick the right sticker that depicts what you want to say,” Lee said.

That largely explains why Line has become a global phenomenon. It has effectively overcome the language barrier through a more universal expression of whatever emotion or sentiment the communicator wishes to send.

Speaking of Twitter and Facebook, Line’s growth trajectory has impressively outpaced these two big social networking sites. Barely 19 months after its launch in June 2011, it breached 100 million users. For comparison, Twitter reached this number in 49 months, while Facebook mustered it in 54. This year, Line’s already meteoric growth rate has even increased to a whopping 1,500 percent as it reached 150 million users a few weeks ago.

“Without typing anything text messages, we want to help users communicate,” said Lee. “Some of you may probably still be using emoticons but, with Line, if you get upset and angry, you can use a (specific) sticker.” Because the icons are imaginative and extensive graphical representations, users can obviously choose the most appropriate one that most accurately represents their feelings. The stickman-like Moon, for instance, features him throwing up, shaking a fist in anger, grinning almost conspiratorially, scratching his head while sticking his tongue out, looking outright downcast, and other highly graphic poses and looks.

Sticker sets are available for $1.99 for about 40 stickers. These are not limited to the in-house Line characters, but feature anything from Doraemon to Winnie the Pooh to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and even Hello Kitty.

Line also integrates social media features such as Home and Timeline along with Official Accounts. “Through Home and Timeline, users can share status messages and updates for their contacts to see, similar to social networking giants Twitter and Facebook,” according to a company release. “Official Accounts, meanwhile, allow users to directly interact with celebrities and high-profile people anytime, anywhere. Through this feature, celebrities can send updates directly to fans through the chat interface, and vice versa — making the interaction much more personal.”

Lee said Line, with its complete portfolio of services, is striving to support all major operating systems of PCs and mobile handsets. Phones powered by iOs, Windows, Android, and BlackBerry can join in the fun. Recently, Line added Nokia Asha.

Lee said the company is not looking at a quick-burn, short-term venture. “Our user base is more important that short-term profit. All our services are free of charge, but we still generate good revenue,” he said.

With its formal entry in the Philippine market, Line officials are in “discussion with many (local) service providers to provide more interesting service feature. All those plans will be free of charge for our users,” added Lee. “We want to help good character providers. We welcome them to come and join us. If we find mobile game developers, we welcome that as well. As a mobile service platform, we can help them meet more users in the Philippines and other countries.”

That’s something that should, well, stick.