Business Spotlight: Line Part 1

The Line messaging application has been a mainstay during the pandemic. Thousands of businesses, local governments and individuals across Japan use it to keep the public informed. Fittingly, it was developed in response to another national emergency: the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. When telecommunications were disrupted after the earthquake, internet company NHN Japan developed Line as a way for people to communicate, releasing it to the public in June 2011. It gained 50 million users within a year. By comparison, it took Twitter and Facebook over three years to achieve similar numbers. What made Line so successful was its understanding of the Japanese market. It achieved fame in Japan early on for its stickers, which people used to make their messages stand out. The stickers’ cute and varied character designs endeared the Japanese public to the social network, and by 2013, Line was the country’s most popular messaging app. (Jasmin Hayward) To be continued… This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.