NHN (developer of 'Line') launches 'Line Band'

NHN recently launched 'Band' - or rather, renamed the service to 'Line Band' and launched it in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand.

'Line Band' is a social service that lets one share their schedule, events in their everyday lives, and photos.

It is synchronized with Line and uses 'Line Channel'. The service came 1st place in Thailand in the 'free apps' category, and 1st in Japan and Taiwan in the 'social category'. It got over 50 million downloads.

They are planning to launch the service in English and Spanish soon.

'Line Band' will not only let them expand overseas with regards to games, but also they are expecting that they will be able to see how "powerful" Line is.

Kakao launches 'KakaoPoll'

Kakao recently launched 'KakaoPoll' in Japan, America and Canada.

KakaoPoll is usable even if you are not a Kakao user - you can log in with your Facebook or Twitter account.

Looks like NHN's 'Line' and Kakao's 'KakaoTalk' are facing fierce competition with each other.

They are both aiming for the overseas expansion by increasing the number of services available, using their SNS service as the platform.

Three giant Korean telcos announce LTE unlimited data

The three telcos, SK Telecom, LG U+, and KT announced that they will all be providing unlimited data for their monthly plans.

However, some people are saying that unlimited data usage could lead to heavy traffic.

Consequently, it could lead to the impairment of:

a) the quality of phone calls and b) a slow-down of internet speed.

Also, the LTE proposal is more expensive than the existing 3G plans.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few months. You can read more about it here.