Sticker (messaging)

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A sticker is a detailed illustration of a character that represents an emotion or action that is a mix of cartoons and Japanese smiley-like "emojis" sent through instant messaging platforms. They have more variety than emoticons and have a basis from internet "reaction face" culture due to their ability to portray body language with a facial reaction. Stickers are elaborate, character-driven emoticons and give people a lightweight means to communicate through kooky animations. [1]

Contents

History

Stickers were first popularized by the Korean-developed mobile messaging app Line. Naver developed the app with the Japanese market in mind, as KakaoTalk was already the dominant mobile messaging service in South Korea. The stickers' blend of the ubiquitous emoji system with anime-styled artwork, and their use as a substitute for typing out longer messages in Japanese text, helped the feature appeal to Japanese audiences. As Line's dominance grew, the mascot characters featured within Line's sticker sets also became popular as merchandise. [2]

In 2013, stickers began to expand beyond Asian markets: Path added stickers in March 2013 as part of its new private messaging system, [3] followed by Facebook's main and Facebook Messenger mobile apps in April. In July, sticker functionality was extended to Facebook's web interface, [4] [5] while Kik Messenger also added stickers. [6] Startup companies devoted to stickers also emerged, helping produce them on behalf of brands as part of advertising campaigns. [7]

By November 2013, a survey of mobile messaging users found that 40% of those surveyed used stickers on a daily basis, with Indonesians showing the highest amount of daily usage (46%), followed by China (43%), South Korea (38%) and the United States (35%). Out of those who did regularly use stickers, 20% had paid for stickers or emoji in mobile messaging apps at least once. [8]

In 2016, Snapchat acquired Bitstrips for its app Bitmoji, which allows users to create custom stickers featuring a personal avatar. [9] [10] [11]

In July 2019, Telegram introduced animated stickers, using a new format .tgs, with support for third-party sticker packs. [12] In December, [13] Signal introduced sticker packs in PNG and WebP formats and APNG for animation. [14] Later, in July 2020, WhatsApp implemented animated stickers with several official packs. [15] In June 2021, Discord added the capability for premium users to use animated stickers. [16]

In September 2023, Instagram and Facebook Messenger introduced the ability to add AI-generated stickers. [17] Within a week, there were reports of people issuing inappropriate prompts involving celebrities or copyrighted characters, such as Elmo holding a knife. [18]

IOS 17 Apple rolls out Image to Sticker. The feature allows users to long press an image object to cut the background and save the object as a digital sticker that can be used in messaging or photos. [19]

Use and model

Stickers are commonly downloadable for free, but some services may offer premium options via microtransactions, often described as stickers as a service. Sets may be devoted to specific themes, characters, as well as popular brands and media franchises such as Hello Kitty, Psy, and the Minions of Despicable Me . [1] [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instant messaging</span> Form of computer communication over the internet or locally

Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate (real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involving simple text message exchanges, modern IM applications and services tend to also feature the exchange of multimedia, emojis, file transfer, VoIP, and video chat capabilities.

An emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation as well as to replace words as part of a logographic system. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, expressions, activity, food and drinks, celebrations, flags, objects, symbols, places, types of weather, animals, and nature.

The landscape for instant messaging involves cross-platform instant messaging clients that can handle one or multiple protocols. Clients that use the same protocol can typically federate and talk to one another. The following table compares general and technical information for cross-platform instant messaging clients in active development, each of which have their own article that provide further information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBM (software)</span> Instant messaging software

BBM, also known by its full name BlackBerry Messenger, was a consumer-oriented proprietary mobile instant messenger and videotelephony application service originally developed by BlackBerry Limited and later briefly by Indonesian company Emtek under licence. Initially it was included and offered on BlackBerry devices before it was expanded cross-platform. BBM was shut down on 31 May 2019; the company since continues to offer the paid enterprise edition, BBM Enterprise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instagram</span> Social media platform owned by Meta Platforms

Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 32 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WhatsApp</span> Messaging and VoIP service owned by Meta

WhatsApp is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messenger (software)</span> Instant messaging app

Messenger, also known as Facebook Messenger, is an American proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the client application of Messenger is currently available on iOS and Android mobile platforms, Windows and macOS desktop platforms, through the Messenger.com web application, and on the standalone Facebook Portal hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ChatON</span> Mobile communication service

ChatON was a global mobile communication service provided by Samsung Electronics from September 2011 to March 2015.

Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the multimedia Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually available for only a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. The app has evolved from originally focusing on person-to-person photo sharing to presently featuring users' "Stories" of 24 hours of chronological content, along with "Discover", letting brands show ad-supported short-form content. It also allows users to store photos in a password-protected area called "My Eyes Only". It has also reportedly incorporated limited use of end-to-end encryption, with plans to broaden its use in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitstrips</span> Defunct Canadian media and technology company

Bitstrips was a media and technology company based in Toronto, Canada, and founded in 2007 by Jacob Blackstock, David Kennedy, Shahan Panth, Dorian Baldwin, and Jesse Brown. The company's web application, Bitstrips.com, allowed users to create comic strips using personalized avatars, and preset templates and poses. Brown and Blackstock explained that the service was meant to enable self-expression without the need to have artistic skills. Bitstrips was first presented in 2008 at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and the service later piloted and launched a version designed for use as educational software. The service achieved increasing prominence following the launch of versions for Facebook and mobile platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telegram (software)</span> Cross-platform instant messaging service

Telegram Messenger, commonly known as Telegram, is a cloud-based, cross-platform, social media and instant messaging (IM) service. It was originally launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 and Android on 20 October 2013. It allows users to exchange messages, share media and files, and hold private and group voice or video calls as well as public livestreams. It is available for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and web browsers. Telegram offers end-to-end encryption in voice and video calls, and in optional private chats, which Telegram calls Secret Chats.

Giphy, styled as GIPHY, is an American online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share animated GIF files.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hike Messenger</span> Instant messaging app

Hike Messenger, aka Hike Sticker Chat, was a multifunctional Indian adware application offering instant messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) services that was launched on December 11, 2012, by Kavin Bharti Mittal. Hike functioned through SMS. The app registration used a standard, one-time password (OTP) based authentication process.

Stickers as a service (SaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provides digital stickers to messaging apps and photo editing software.

Onavo, Inc. was an Israeli mobile web analytics company that was purchased by Facebook, Inc., who changed the company's name to Facebook Israel. The company primarily performed its activities via consumer mobile apps, including the virtual private network (VPN) service Onavo Protect, which analysed web traffic sent through the VPN to provide statistics on the usage of other apps.

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered a second news feed for the social media website. It is focused around Facebook's in-app camera which allows users to add fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.

MessageMe was a messaging app and platform for the iPhone and Android. It launched in March 2013 and grew to 5 million users within 3 months. The app allowed users to send and receive videos, photos, stickers, and voice messages in addition to text.

Comparison of user features of messaging platforms refers to a comparison of all the various user features of various electronic instant messaging platforms. This includes a wide variety of resources; it includes standalone apps, platforms within websites, computer software, and various internal functions available on specific devices, such as iMessage for iPhones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Story (social media)</span> Function in social networking and instant messaging services

In social media, a story is a function in which the user tells a narrative or provides status messages and information in the form of short, time-limited clips in an automatically running sequence.

References

  1. 1 2 Van, Jennifer (2013-07-02). "Facebook affixes stickers to messages on Web | Internet & Media - CNET News". News.cnet.com. Archived from the original on 2013-07-03. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
  2. ↑ Russell, Jon (2013-07-12). "Stickers: From Japanese Craze to Global Messaging Phenomenon". The Next Web. Archived from the original on 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
  3. ↑ "Path 3 adds private messaging and stickers, much like your 5th grade binder". Engadget. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  4. ↑ "Facebook Brings Its Mobile Messaging Stickers To The Web As Their Designer Exits". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  5. ↑ Cipriani, Jason. "Download additional 'Stickers' for Facebook Messenger". CNET. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  6. ↑ Russell, Jon (2013-07-31). "Kiks Add Stickers and Third-Party Games". The Next Web. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  7. ↑ "How one startup is turning emoji into cash". Fortune. Archived from the original on 2020-10-25. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  8. ↑ "Global Mobile Android/iOS Messaging App Map Dominated By WhatsApp — But BBM Bags A Foothold". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-04-25.
  9. ↑ "Snapchat builds Bitmojis into app, confirms acquisition of Toronto startup". The Globe and Mail. 19 July 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  10. ↑ "Here's How You Can Use Bitmoji Inside Snapchat". Fortune. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  11. ↑ "Why Snapchat bought Toronto-based Bitstrips for $100M". CTV News . 28 March 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Davenport, Corbin (7 July 2019). "Telegram 5.9 introduces new sticker format for quicker loading times [APK Download]". Android Police. Archived from the original on 30 December 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  13. ↑ jlund (17 Dec 2019). "Make privacy stick". Signal Messenger. Archived from the original on 26 September 2024. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  14. ↑ "Stickers". Signal Support. Archived from the original on 19 April 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  15. ↑ "Introducing Animated Stickers, QR codes and more". WhatsApp. 1 July 2020. Archived from the original on 30 December 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  16. ↑ Peters, Jay (30 June 2021). "Discord now lets you share a little more about yourself in your profile". The Verge. Archived from the original on 1 April 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
  17. ↑ "Meta announces 'universe of AI' for Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp". VentureBeat. 27 September 2023. Archived from the original on 30 October 2023. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  18. ↑ Edwards, Benj (4 October 2023). "Users find that Facebook's new AI stickers can generate Elmo with a knife". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 30 October 2023. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  19. ↑ "Make stickers from your photos on iPhone". Apple Support. Archived from the original on 2024-05-12. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  20. ↑ Constine, Josh (2013-06-27). "Facebook Launches First Branded Stickers, Previewing A Potential Sponsorship Biz". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
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