Paul McCartney celebrates popularity on Line by selling 'sound stickers' to fans
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Version 0 of 1. Paul McCartney has become the first western musician to sell a set of “sound stickers” within messaging app Line, where his official profile has nearly 10.7 million followers. He’s one of the most popular artists on Line, and the app has become the former Beatle’s biggest social platform by some distance. McCartney has 2.3 million followers on Twitter and 6.2m likes for his Facebook page. The new set of stickers - collections of images that fans can download then paste in to their conversations with friends – follows two previous (soundless) sets released within Line in 2013 and 2014. The new set has been released to tie in with McCartney’s latest tour of Japan, which is Line’s home country. “A few weeks ago, Paul recorded a variety of phrases exclusively for LINE in both English and Japanese before jetting off for tour rehearsals in LA,” explained his website. “These recordings have been combined with 24 illustrated stickers designed to convey a wide range of daily expressions, which are a great and fun new way to chat with your friends.” Related: Messaging apps' next threads: encryption, payments, media and ads The stickers aren’t just a personalisation tool for fans of McCartney: they’re a new revenue stream for him. Line is charging 100 virtual coins for the set, with that amount of virtual currency costing £1.49 in its in-app store. Line, whose main rivals include WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in the west, but also KakaoTalk and weChat in Asia, has been growing fast in recent years. In January, the company said it had 181 million active users. Paul McCartney is one of a number of musicians with active profiles on Line, including Taylor Swift (who has 14 million followers on the app), Katy Perry (13.2 million) and Linkin Park (6.6 million). Line has wider music ambitions too. In December 2014 it announced plans to launch a streaming music service in Japan in partnership with labels Sony Music and Avex Digital, then acquired Nokia’s MixRadio streaming service to run elsewhere in the world. |