日本动漫版Skype走红全球

    当蠢笨且表情夸张的日本动漫人物遇上免费短信和语音通话技术，两者的结晶就是日本唯一一款在海外大热的应用——连我（Line）。目前，它的下载量已经突破了1亿次。

    “它的速度超过电子邮件，比短信更有创意，比打电话还便宜，叫人怎能不爱它，”一位西班牙粉丝在该公司的宣传视频中说道。连我应用的支持者还有很多。它设计精巧，已经获得多个奖项，其中包括著名的2012年日经优秀产品服务奖（Nikkei Superior Products Service Award 2012）。到目前为止，连我仅在日本就拥有了约4,150万用户，其中大部分在30岁以下。

    与微软（Microsoft）的Skype等全球性产品相比，连我最特别的一点是它出自有些与世隔绝的日本科技业——产品在国外极少有粉丝。位于东京的技术顾问塞尔坎•托托称：“连我最不同寻常的地方在于，它是首款在国际上获得成功的日本网络服务。它在短短19个月内就吸引到了6,000万名海外用户，可谓前无古人。”它的用户增速甚至超过了当年的Facebook。

    这款应用在日本大获成功，覆盖了该国约三分之一的移动用户，甚至开始威胁日本人信赖了十多年的移动电子邮件。

    连我流行的主要基础是日本拥有绝对优势的一个领域，也就是设计和使用表情符号。在连我中，这些表情符号已经发展成完整的角色形象，例如神秘的月亮意味着“你永远不知道接下来会发生什么”。这些表情符号被称为“贴图”，目的是帮助用户以诙谐的方式传达信息。

    虽然许多贴图都是免费的，但据知情人士透露，这项业务每月能为连我的开发商NHN日本（NHN Japan）带来高达400万美元的利润。不过NHN日本并没有发布官方的数据。NHN日本每月还能进账数百万日元的广告费，目前有30多家公司在连我上发布优惠券等类型的广告信息。除此之外，程序内购买也是连我的稳定收入来源。

    不过，连我的其它服务目前发展不甚顺畅。据托托透露，时间线功能（类似于Facebook的动态信息）已宣告失败。“NHN日本正在大力推广星座、优惠券、虚拟世界、儿童平台等服务，不过它们到底是能吸引到更多用户，还是会起到反作用，目前仍是个未知数。 ”

    What do you get if you cross emoting, goofy manga characters with free messaging and calls? Japan's only export app hit—called Line—which recently hit its 100 millionth download.

    "Faster than email, more creative than text and cheaper than calling, what's not to love," says one Spanish fan on the company promotional video. He's not the app's only booster. Line is a slickly designed product that has garnered awards, including a prestigious Nikkei Superior Products Service Award 2012. So far, Line has some 41.5 million subscribers, mostly under 30 years old, in Japan alone.

    What really sets Line apart from other globalised formats such as Microsoft's (MSFT) Skype is that it has come out of the Galapagos-like conditions of the Japanese tech scene: its wares rarely find fans abroad. "What's remarkable about Line is that is the first online service coming from Japan ever to become an international success," says Serkan Toto a technology consultant based in Tokyo. "Racking up 60 million non-Japanese users in just 19 months is a historic accomplishment." That is at a faster pace than even Facebook (FB) found subscribers.

    The app is so wildly popular in Japan, covering about a third of all mobile users, that it is killing use of communication sworn by Japanese for over a decade now—mobile email.

    Much of the app's popularity rides on one area where Japan has an unassailable lead, the design and playful use of emoji or Japanese emoticons. On the Line app they have grown into fully delineated characters such as the enigmatic Moon "You never know next what will be happing with this one". They are called "stickers," and are intended to help users get their message across in amusing ways.

    Sales of such stickers, though many are free, are earning Line's creators NHN Japan healthy profits of about $4 million a month, according to sources familiar with the company. NHN does not share such figures. While other revenue comes from about 30 companies who pay several million yen a month for advertising on the service, such as distributing coupons. There is also steady earnings from an in-app game service.

    Other services have not been so successful. Features such as a timeline, which essentially works like Facebook's news feed, have flopped says Toto. "It remains to be see if other functions NHN Japan keeps baking into the platform like horoscopes, coupons, a virtual world, a platform for kids, etc. will attract more users or alienate them."