LINE vs. WeChat. Get ready to rumble.
Summary
Walk in any Don Quixote store in Japan (ドン・キホーテ) and you’ll witness precious shelf space allocated to LINE stuffed animals, figurines, iPhone holders, pencil cases, etc. The power of de-virtualizing content and profiting from physical products that prove irresistible to consumers and difficult or too costly to plagiarize is generally recognized to be the force behind Disney’s path back to glory. Indeed, I experienced that first-hand on a recent trip to Shanghai, where I installed WeChat and within an hour received a professional voice message from the director of m&a for Cisco China, who happened to be an old friend that I had lost track of years ago. I can imagine the value of integrating group collaboration functions will extend messenger app usage from leisure time into the workplace, especially in cultures where the line between social and professional life is blurred. However, listening to him ramble on how WhatsApp wants to keep it simple and how it believes reliable text messaging is what really counts and that stickers and stuff are but gimmicks, it gives me a déjà-vu — that was exactly what Blackberry claimed when they started to lose market share to iPhone.