Stick around for fun with chat app Viber

If you are a fan of Digital Life, there will soon be a new way to share your love for our weekly tech supplement with your friends.

The chat messaging app Viber has created a special customised sticker for fans which shows the popular Viber character, Rocco the Raccoon, reading Digital Life while travelling on the MRT.

This special sticker is part of the second localised sticker pack that Viber will release in its Sticker Market next month.

The sticker pack can be downloaded free. It will feature common activities such as reading the newspaper on the train, shopping and students studying at popular fast food joints.

A third set of stickers will also be launched at the same time. It will feature popular spots such as Clarke Quay and East Coast Park.

Stickers are the new face of emoticons for messaging apps, such as Viber, Line and Kakao Talk, and even Facebook.

Stickers are larger than emoticons and, unlike emoticons, can incorporate text messages.

Viber said sticker pack downloads grew fivefold last year over 2013, and more than 22 billion stickers were sent over Viber last year.

Like mobile apps, some stickers are free and others have to be paid for.

Japan's Line is the market leader in monetising stickers. Creators Market, its sticker marketplace, generated more than 3.59 billion yen (S$41 million) in revenue in the six months to last November.

It once took a 50-per-cent share of every sticker sold by its indie creators. But since February, it has upped its slice of the pie to 65 per cent.

ginlee@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Mar 11, 2015.
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