“Obviously,
there’s a massive trend that goes on with emoji and stickers…and what it’s
really all about is people finding new ways to communicate. People use emoji to
describe tone – and fundamentally, it’s an easier way to express yourself than
punching out of couple of sentences.”
Imoji Founder Tom Smith
speaking about the future of his company that allows users to create their own
custom Emoji Stickers
Apple
iPhone users, I something special for you!
Emoticons
are still a popular mode of communications and I was super-happy when they came
to Facebook back in 2012 as stated in my Geezam
blog article entitled “How
to add Emoticons to your Facebook posts”. But they're limited to a smiley
Face with various combinations of punctuations creating different emoticons.
Enter
the Emoji, the new #Trending hieroglyphics of modern Communication over that
medium called IM (Instant Messaging).
Designer
Tom Smith, formerly of Apple, has tapped into that trend with his IM App
Extension called Emoji that helps Apple iPhone users who have a thing for
iMessage to create their own custom hieroglyphs as explained in Imoji For iPhone Lets You Turn
Any Image Into A Custom Emoji, published July 24 2014 by Sarah Perez, Techcrunch and “Bye-Bye,
Words: An Emoji-Only Social App Is Coming”, published 6/30/2014 @ 8:02PM by Parmy Olson, Forbes.
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Founder
of Offline, an App based magazine that's reminiscent of our Local Loop App here
in Jamaica as described in my blog article
entitled “Loop
is Big News on Apple iTunes and the Google Play Store – Social Media Entity
makes big splash in Social Media Scene”, Tom Smith started Emoji as a way
for IM users to create more photo-realistic custom emoji instead of relying on
the preset stock that came with most IM Applications.
Imoji for iMessage
Emoji – Creative Community just got their Sticker producing outlet
For
the Desktop or Laptop bound, Imoji,
which is available exclusively on the Apple
iTunes Store, is a lot like PhotoScape,
that freeware Image Viewer program that allows you to manipulate images that
you find online and create animated GIF, Collages and even combine photos into
a single filmstrip.
However,
you creative genius will be confined to your Apple iPhone and restricted to
images you can pilfer from the web or photographs from your Apple iPhone Camera
or Photo Gallery. The tools are much simpler than PhotoScape;
Zoom, Crop and then Cutting your image via a virtual pair of scissors
controlled via a touch interface makes it feel like more like Microsoft Paint
for your Apple iPhone.
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But
the quaintness aside, your creation, which is basically a sticker, can go
private or public with other users of the Imoji App,
with immediate usage within iMessage. Best of all, Imoji is
social; if you're not into being creative, there are others who might be more
creative and may be offering their emoji publicly, allowing you to synch them
for usage in your iMessage Texts.
If
you’re into the popularity love-game, a Twitter-esque listing of the most
popular Emojis designed by other Imoji App
users. Armed with that list, you'll always put your best hieroglyphics forwards
and communicate in personalized style, albeit these are more like Stickers than
emoji.
Stickers
are already hugely popular in Japan and Taiwan and many Americans and Wanna-be
Americans in Jamaica may already be aware that Japanese users of the Line App
will spend serious money to purchase Stickers as explained in my blog article
entitled “Japanese
Line introduces Line Call for Landline and Mobile - US$0.02 per Call and Kawaii
Stickers a plus as WhatsApp and Skype get company in making International
Calling and Roaming Extinct”.
Imoji Sticker trend
Rising – Taiwan and Japanese Trend may become money-maker for Celebrities
Imoji
founder Tom Smith is very much aware of this coming future trend. Already his
app has that Social-like feature of using Emoji share publicly by other
Designers. Thus he's got plans in the pipeline to expand on that Twitter-like
approach and allow persons to follow the truly creative on Imoji.
Possible
monetization models may also exist, with options for some Emoji Designers to
sell their stickers and make revenue from sales split between the Imoji and
themselves.
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Even
corporate-sponsored Advertising Stickers may be coming, with companies and
Celebrities being able to make premium stickers to be sold at a higher price.
iMessage advertising is possible as well.
But
I’ll be more interested in how long emojis as a trend will stick around as Imoji
founder Tom Smith begins to look into the Eye of the Tiger. In the meantime,
scope out his app on the Apple iTunes Store:
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