Personal social network Couple adds in-app purchases for your loved ones… yes, that means stickers

Couple, the social network for… well, couples, has released an update today that includes a new shop to facilitate in-app purchases. And, as is the trend these days, this can mean only one thing: stickers. Yes, you can now send your partner stickers from one of the eight-packs that Couple has made available in its iOS and Android apps.

Stickers are certainly the rave in the technology industry. Social networks like Path, Facebook, Line, and others have added stickers to their respective messaging services. And services are making money off of this craze. In May, Line revealed that it made $17 million just from selling stickers during the first quarter of 2013.

Couple is taking a different approach. Rather than having both significant others have to buy their own sticker pack, the app is implementing a “Buy One, Get One Free” approach, meaning that only one purchase is needed as your partner will automatically receive it as well.

Users can choose from one of two basic types of sticker packs: characters and nudges. Couple describes it this way:

We used the characters to help users express a really diverse range of emotions, that make communicating emotion while chatting much easier. On the other hand, the inspiration for the nudges was the “thinking of you” button in our app.

But what happens should the couple break up? The service says that the user who actually purchased the sticker will retain custody and can then share it with their next partner.

If you’re not immediately familiar with Couple, you might better recognize the service by its former name: Pair. Several months ago, the personal social network hit the 1 million user milestone. It’s actually run by Y Combinator company Tenthbit and was intended to allow two people to stay connected by allowing them to schedule dates, reminders, create sketches, send messages, and set up lists to post memos and to-do notices. In its first four days post-launch, it was downloaded 50,000 times and had 1 million messages shared.

Couple competes against the likes of Avocado and Duet and Between, but seems to be behind the curve as Avocado has had its sketch and stickers feature since February.

➤ Couple for iOS | Google Play

See related: Stickers: From Japanese craze to global mobile messaging phenomenon

Photo credit: China Photos/Getty Images

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