'Line' Tag
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A quick start suddenly slowed, but now LINE Quick Games are back
December 11, 2018Looks like LINE quick games are finally back after a sudden false start. I’m eagerly awaiting some official communication from LINE explaining the November shutdown. In the meantime, I encourage LINE users to give the quick games a try during the holiday downtime. Daily Sudoku (今日のナンプレ) is my favorite, but I’m biased.
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LINE Quick Game… not so fast
November 7, 2018Well, that’s embarrassing. It looks as though every single HTML5 Quick Game on LINE Messenger is undergoing “maintenance” for the month of November. This must be egg on the face for LINE, since they released the Quick Game platform barely two months ago. I quickly became a fan, mainly because I found it far less […]
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LINE Messenger’s HTML5 Quick Games
October 7, 2018Our portfolio company CoolGames launched Daily Sudoku on LINE Messenger’s new Quick Games section the other day. The game is a fun little distraction, so I encourage LINE users to give it a try. These HTML5 games are monetized via interstitial ads. Curiously, my first time playing triggered an ad from Facebook: So I suppose […]
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Mobile messaging: is it (finally) the Americans’ time ?
April 12, 2016Long time readers of this blog will recognize my fascination with mobile messaging apps for a while now (Don’t shoot the Messenger, Line vs WeChat, My personalized Line stickers, etc.). For years now I’ve argued that the modern wave of messaging rose in Asia, with the West playing catch-up. Last year I wrote about my […]
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LINE Stickers still are a thing
June 29, 2015Although there are not many of us in Western Europe who use LINE as their primary messaging app (outside of Spain, where LINE penetration is remarkable), the multi-purpose platform that is LINE continues to entertain and stimulate creative new use cases around the world, like being coupled with Instagram to drive e-commerce in Thailand. I […]
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My personalized LINE sticker packs
April 18, 2015I feel like a kid in a candy store. My personalized sticker packs have been officially released by LINE on its messaging platform! I would like to publicly thank the artiste extraordinaire, codename Julien Penguin, for designing these loveable characters: Dr.Atom & Quark, and the Safari Triathlon Team. Regular users of LINE will understand my […]
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How LINE is turning Instagram into an ecommerce app in Thailand
February 17, 2015On a recent exploratory visit to Bangkok, I witnessed first-hand a consumer shopping behavior that absolutely blew my mind and underscored how the West does not have a monopoly on business model innovation. Incidentally, my secret for glimpsing generalized consumer behaviors in a foreign country is to eschew the convenience of taxis or Uber in […]
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LINE continues its global expansion
September 15, 2014Here are penetration figures released by LINE last week on its international adoption. Wow!
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LINE vs. WeChat. Get ready to rumble.
May 20, 2014An enthusiastic user of LINE, Mark Bivens faces off against Jerry Yang, a trainee at Truffle Capital and a WeChat apologist, on the merits of each app. MB: First, I think we can agree on one thing: that WhatsApp, BBM, Viber, Telegram, eBuddy, Nimbuzz, SnapChat, and even Kik do not swim in the same pond […]
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Stickers-as-a-Service is the new SaaS
April 22, 2014LINE’s creators market finally opened up last week allowing third parties and independent illustrators to submit their sticker collections for distribution on the Line’s messenger app. In case you haven’t heard yet, there’s a sticker revolution going on. A recent article in Le Figaro deems the business still-as-yet unrecognized, but entrepreneurs know better. With all […]
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How to create a monopoly for your app in 2014
March 4, 2014Pop quiz: what do Klyqme, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Line have in common? Answer: they all enjoy quasi-monopolies in certain markets for their apps. Klyqme is the pre-eminent sms-based social network in Indonesia (which is rapidly threatening to displace India among the elite group of BRICs in my opinion, but that’s fodder for another blog post) […]
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More on Line
November 28, 2013What a difference a month makes. Japanese chat app LINE has reportedly gained an additional 50 million users since I wrote Don’t Shoot the Messenger (App) last month. They haven’t officially embarked in France… yet.