Dentsu Announces Emoji Cloud Platform
Press release via Dentsu & partners introduces free SDK to ‘droid & iOS developers = Smiles in the Cloud! http://bit.ly/A2TFbt
Press Release [.PDF]
Dentsu announced today that it has developed the “;Dcloud2” cloud platform together with D2 Communications and Bijutsu Shuppan Networks Co., Ltd. to dramatically enhance ease of use for users of emoji. As of today, ;Dcloud software development kits (SDK) for Android and iPhone application providers worldwide are available free of charge. Some of the applications developed using the ;Dcloud platform will be announced at Mobile World Congress 2012 which will be held in Spain at the end of February. These applications will also be made available to smartphone users worldwide at the same time.
Emoji-enabled services, such as Deco-mail, are used by more than 70 percent of young women in Japan. The emoji market in Japan alone exceeds US$300 million. DecoMarket,a smartphone application that offers emoji for purchase, has had more than 700,000 Android Market downloads in Japan alone since its launch in November 2010, and is now the largest emoji application in Japan. The launch of the ;Dcloud service will make emoji even more user-friendly.
A huge number of emoji are provided on the cloud platform, and users can easily use emoji as though they were already installed on their own smartphones. Seamless linking of the applications supported by ;Dcloud allows emoji to be automatically synchronized regardless of the application or the smartphone model used. Users can therefore easily choose the emoji that appeal to them.
In addition to making a major contribution to ease of use for users of emoji, ;Dcloud offers new business opportunities to developers and content providers who hold rights to emoji. By using the ;Dcloud SDK, developers can easily incorporate a communication system that utilizes emoji into their applications, even if they are located on the other side of the world. CPs who use the ;Dcloud platform can distribute the emoji to which they hold rights worldwide, instead of just in their home countries.
The following services can be used in addition to the free-of-charge services:
++ New content for subscribers will be added on a daily basis. Several tens of thousands of emoji will be available at the start of the service next year, and this number will be increased to several hundreds of thousands.
++ Emoji upload function: In addition to emoji provided by ;Dcloud, users who have created a ;Dcloud account can upload their own emoji to the cloud for use with applications supported by ;Dcloud.
++ Unlimited access to social palettes: All the social palettes can be used. Users can also create their own palettes, which they can then make public and share with other users.
As of today, Android and iOS application developers can access the ;Dcloud platform (beta version) and the ;Dcloud SDKs free of charge at the URL given below. The official version of ;Dcloud will be launched worldwide together with several types of supported applications at the end of February 2012. See: http://decomarket.jp/dev/en