Viber, the messaging app down by Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten, is poised to implement a controversial new strategy that will see it charge companies that run chatbots on its platform. The conventional wisdom is to work with content companies to help bring users to messaging platforms and keep them engaged but Viber, which has struggled […]
View More Rakuten’s Viber chat app plans to charge to operate chatbots in controversial moveCategory: KDDI
Rakuten has SoftBank in its sights
This week, I’ve tried to do something new at TechCrunch with this experimental column — getting obsessed about a topic broadly in tech and writing a continuous stream of thoughts and analysis about it. With my research consultant and contributor Arman Tabatabai, we’ve covered two topics: Form Ds, the filing that startups usually submit to […]
View More Rakuten has SoftBank in its sightsJapan is cracking down on SoftBank’s revenue
First, a couple of quick follow-ups to our coverage of Form Ds yesterday, and then a deeper dive into the challenges SoftBank is facing with regards to its revenue in Japan. Finally, some notes on recent articles we have read. We are experimenting with new content forms at TechCrunch. This is a rough draft of […]
View More Japan is cracking down on SoftBank’s revenue