Naver Corporation (
KRX: 035420) is an
Internet content service company which operates Korea's top search engine
Naver and is headquartered in
Seongnam,
South Korea. Naver also established itself as an early pioneer in
user-generated content
through the creation of services such as the world's first online
Q&A platform Knowledge iN. Today, Naver's main page has 26 million
visitors who enter over 300 million search queries and stream 18 million
videos every day.
[2]
Naver also manages global mobile services such as the mobile messenger
LINE, video messenger Snow, and group communication service BAND.
On August 1, 2013, Naver decided to split with
Hangame, a corporation which it had grown together as NHN Corporation for 13 years.
[3] Then, on October 1, 2013, the company adopted its current name
Naver Corporation in order to reflect the change. Hangame is now overseen by
NHN Entertainment. Naver's current affiliates include
Line Corporation,
Snow, Naver Labs, Naver Webtoon, Naver Business Platform, and Works
Mobile. The company is currently cooperating with IT startups in order
to evolve into a tech-based platform.
Product
Search engine
Naver was the first Korean web service provider to develop its own
search engine. It was also the world's first operator to introduce the
comprehensive search service (which refers to optimized search results
from various categories such as news, maps, images and so on, presented
on a single page). The search engine has since grown into a website that
offers a variety of related services including e-mail, map, shopping,
post, music, pay, TV cast, and so on. As of September 2017, the search
engine handled 74.7% of all web searches in South Korea and had 42
million enrolled users. More than 25 million Koreans have Naver as the
start page on their default browser and the mobile application has 28
million daily visitors. Naver is constantly referred to as 'the Google
of South Korea'.
[9]
Junior Naver
Junior Naver, also known as Juniver, is a children's search service
that began in 1999 with the purpose of fostering a safe internet culture
for children. Junior Naver provides various services for children of
each age range, such as Pororo Play Time (educational content for aged
3~5), Pany's Room (decoration simulator using Pany Pang characters),
Children’s song world, and Children’s story world -- as well as a Disney
Zone for Disney Channel shows and animations. In addition, by providing
educational content such as Homework Helper and Hanja Adventure, Junior
Naver is currently ranked in first place in terms of visitors and page
views among Korean search engines for children. The application and the
mobile web version were each launched in 2011 and 2012 in order to
provide contents in streaming form rather than having to download them.
Junior Naver also operates a parental monitoring system that blocks
harmful or inappropriate information.
Knowledge iN
In 2002, Naver set up the world's first online Q&A platform, Knowledge iN.
[10]
It is a community where users can users pose questions on any subject,
and select among answers provided by other users, awarding points to
those who provide the best answers.
[11] In this way, Knowledge iN was an early example of harnessing
user-generated content to expand the amount of information available on the web, particularly in the
Korean language.
Bradley Horowitz, Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo!, has cited the South Korean service as the inspiration for
Yahoo! Answers, which was launched three years after Knowledge iN.
[12]
Knowledge iN also offers an Open Dictionary function, which is a
database of informative articles generated by users. Users can create an
article on their own, or enable other users to collaborate by creating a
thread of articles on the same subject. There is also an 'Ask an
Expert' category where licensed doctors, veterinarians, pharmacists,
lawyers, tax accountants, and labor attorneys answer users' questions.
As of May 2016, Knowledge iN had 100 million questions, 200 million
answers, and 47 million accumulated users.
[13]
Cafe and Blog
Naver Cafe and Blog are especially well-known
user-generated content
(UGC) platforms where users post specialized contents on various
themes. Cafe allows users to create internet communities on various
topics, and Blog gives any user the chance to manage his or her own
personal blog. There were 10.5 million Naver Cafes running in May 2017,
making Naver the most visited Cafe platform in the country. 800,000 new
contents are generated every day in 23 million Blogs and 10 million
Cafes.
Dictionary and Encyclopedia
Naver Dictionary supports 34 categories, including English, Korean,
Chinese, Chinese characters, Japanese, Global Communication, Vietnamese,
Uzbek, Indonesian, Thai, Arabic, Cambodian, Tamil, Mongolian, Hindi,
Persian, Nepali, Swahili, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian,
Latin, Portuguese, Turkish, Georgian, Albanian, Ukrainian, Romanian,
Dutch, Swedish, Hungarian, Polish, and Czech as of May 30, 2017. It has
the most languages among Korean dictionaries. Handwriting recognition is
supported in Japanese, Chinese, and Chinese characters. Naver is also
investing 10 billion won for the development of language dictionaries
for five years beginning from 2016.
Naver Encyclopedia functions consist of a professional database with over 3 million entries from many different encyclopedias.
V LIVE
V LIVE is a global live streaming platform with high-quality videos
and contents ranging from concert broadcasts to V originals (for
example, real-time private shows for celebrities). There is also a
subtitle service called V FANSUB which allows users to insert their own
foreign-language subtitles to the videos.
[14] The subtitle feature has attracted a large number of foreign viewers, as
k-pop is gaining popularity in other countries. V LIVE has 35 million total downloads and 19 million monthly users.
Naver Papago
In July 2017, Naver launched Papago, which is an AI-based mobile
translator that uses a large neural network technology named N2MT (Naver
Neural Machine Translation). It can translate text and phrases in six
different languages (Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish,
French) by analyzing context instead of statistical analysis.
[15]
Naver Pay
In June 2015, Naver launched it owns payment service, Naver Pay, which allows
mobile payment service and online checkout.
Naver TV Cast
Naver TV Cast is a web broadcast network which mainly provides
web dramas distributed by Naver.
Naver Webtoon
In 2004, Naver Corporation launched its online comic service
Naver Webtoon, which is now one of the largest Korean
webtoon platforms. The service promotes a distinct
infinite canvas
layout as well as a weekly update system, and has gained a large amount
of traction beginning from the late 2000s. The service received more
than 6 million hits per day from unique visitors and had accumulated
more than 29 billion total visits as of June 1, 2014.
[16]
In July 2014, Naver launched a global version of the service under the
name of Line Webtoon. The userbase of Line Webtoon grew rapidly after
the service was released globally, with 35 million users per month, 18
million among them being foreign users. Line Webtoon showcases
approximately 870 works in five languages: English, Mandarin, Cantonese,
Taiwanese and Indonesian.
[17] Various
movies,
Korean dramas,
animated series,
and video games have been produced based on Naver webtoons. According
to JunKoo Kim in 2014, "a total of 189 books, videos and games based on
[Naver] webtoons ha[d] either been produced or [were] in the process of
being made."
[18] Well-known works include
The Sound of Your Heart, which was developed into a
web series of the same name,
Noblesse, and
Tower of God.
Fashion King and
Cheese in the Trap were also each adapted into a
film and
television series
respectively. In 2017, Naver split off its webtoon business into the
subsidiary Naver Webtoon, which is also known by its alternative name
Line Webtoon in foreign markets.
In addition, Naver Webtoon also manages a web-novel section
specializing in online genre-novels since 2013. One of its most famous
novels is
Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, which was adapted into a successful
television series of the same name starring
Park Bo-gum and
Kim Yoo-jung.
Naver Whale
In October 2017, Naver officially released the PC version of Whale,
its omni-tasking web browser supporting diverse features using AI
technologies. Naver had been developing Whale for 5 years and had
released a beta version in March.
[19]
Some functions include: omni-tasking (split-screen feature that lets
users browse two sites in the same tab, with an adjustable divider),
quick search (users can simply drag a word and the browser will directly
provide corresponding search results through Naver’s search engine),
and smart pop-up (the browser automatically prevents popups from
cluttering the screen).
Clova
Clova is an AI platform integrating speech and image recognition and
artificial neural network translation to provide an interactive engine.
Clova is being integrated into Naver and Line services, Naver's smart
speaker
WAVE and
Friends, smart display FACE, and other third-party devices.
Grafolio
Grafolio is a creative community space where artists can share their
artworks. Grafolio supports active creators and connects them with
people with the hope that they will be able to meet more fans and make
profits.
Former services
Me2day
Me2day was a
microblog
platform that allowed users to share messages of 150 characters in
length. However, it shut down in June 2014, due to poor performance
against global competitors such as
Twitter and
Facebook.
[20]
Subsidiary companies
Line
LINE Corporation was established in September 2000 as NHN Japan, and
is nowadays regarded as the global subsidiary of Naver Corporation. The
firm manages various services centering on its core product, the
LINE Messenger,
which is a free communication service available on both mobile and PC
devices. Functions such as unique emoticons, stickers, and emojis
contribute to its popularity as it has gathered 220 million monthly
active users (MAU) in 230 countries since its launch in 2011. In 2016,
the firm was double listed on NYSE and TSE.
LINE Corporation also operates the digital curation platform Naver
Matome, the comprehensive news site Livedoor News, and Japan’s biggest
blog service Livedoor Blog. Other family services include B612, Play,
Manga, News, Pay, Taxi, BAITO, and Music. The Line News service exceeds
12 million MAU, and LINE Manga has over 11 million accumulated
downloads. There are also Line-branded games such as
LINE POP,
LINE:Disney Tsmu Tsmu, and
LINE RANGERS.
The firm currently employs 1,979 people with headquarters located in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Line Plus
LINE PLUS (LINE+) Corporation was established in February 2013 with
the goal of expanding LINE into the global market. It primarily handles
global business operations, marketing, and partnerships for countries
outside of Japan. It is located in Seohyun-si Bundang-gu South Korea and
employs 1,785 people including CEO Shin Jung-ho.
CAMP Mobile
CAMP Mobile was established in March 2013 and focuses on developing
mobile services. While it originally began as a small venture project,
Camp Mobile launched over 10 different apps in areas such as utilities,
social networking, and e-commerce within four months of its
establishment.
BAND, CAMP Mobile's first app released in August 2012, is a
closed type of social network where groups can be formed according to
type and purpose. The app has more than 80 million downloads with global
users accounting for 30% of the user base, and currently supports 10
languages in over 168 countries. Band Game was also released in May 2014
to provide a competitive platform for both users and game companies.
According to a survey conducted by the app data analysis firm Wiseapp in
September 2017, Naver BAND is the second most-used social media service
app for South Korean users, after Facebook. Its total usage time was 29
million hours, which was a 32 percent increase from the previous year.
Naver Café came in third place, outperforming Instagram, Daum Café,
Twitter, and Kakao Story.
[21]
In 2015, the company also presented Watchmaster, an app that allows users to select their own smart watch home screen.
In November 2017, it was announced that Camp Mobile would be merged back into Naver Corporation in February 2018.
[22]
SNOW
SNOW Corporation develops a photo and video application called
SNOW, which is considered somewhat similar to
Snapchat,
since both apps suggest video as an alternative communication tool
rather than text. SNOW first began in September 2015 as a guerilla
project in CAMP Mobile, but has spun off into its own company as of 2016
in order to give more focus to the global visual communication market.
[23]
SNOW allows users to take pictures or videos (of a maximum duration of
10 seconds) and choose from 1,300 stickers and 50 filters. They can also
send them as messages that destroy themselves in 48 hours. The
application has over 200 million users, mainly consisting of teenagers
in Asian countries.
The firm is led by CEO Kim Chang-wook and its office is located in Pangyo, South Korea with approximately 200 employees.
Naver Labs
NAVER LABS Corp. is Naver's R&D subsidiary developing future
technologies in areas such as autonomous driving and artificial
intelligence with the goal of achieving Ambient Intelligence. It first
began as an R&D division within Naver in 2013, and was officially
established in Pangyo in January 2017 with CEO Song Chang-Hyeon. Naver
Labs has been working in areas such as Papago (an AI-based translation
app), Whale (an omni-tasking browser), and robots. Products include the
autonomous robot Around,
[24] the in-vehicle information and entertainment platform Away,
[25] as well as an autonomous vehicle project.
[26]
Naver Labs Europe
In August 2017, Naver Labs acquired Xerox Research Center Europe (XRCE) for an undisclosed amount and renamed it
Naver Labs Europe.
[27]
Naver said that the acquisition of the high-tech research center
located in Grenoble, France earned the company 80 specialists in AI
research and development and technologies necessary to "realize 'living
environment intelligence' such as autonomous driving cars and
3-dimensional indoor map production robots".
[28]
Naver Business Platform
NAVER Business Platform (NBP) provides global IT infrastructure
management and enterprise solutions for Naver and its subsidiaries. NBP
has launched a cloud service called Naver Cloud Platform, and has also
created an environment-friendly Data Center called GAK, which was a
first for a domestic internet operator.
The
Data Center GAK was opened in June 2013 in order to
protect the data of several million users in its servers. It consists of
4 server buildings built on a scale of 7 soccer stadiums (54,229m
2). The name of the center comes from ‘Jang Gyung Gak’, a traditional building that houses the famous
Tripitaka Koreana.
Jang Gyung Gak is respected for having safely protected important
historical records even in the face of foreign invasion, and continues
to preserves them in a manner that is both environmentally friendly and
scientifically renown. Likewise, it is said that the Data Center Gak
inherits this spirit of protection and provides safe housing for current
historical records so that they can be passed on to the future. The
Center incorporates environmentally friendly technology that cools the
heat generated from the servers, and in 2009, it has received the top
LEED platinum award with 95 points, which is the highest score in the
world for a data center.
Works Mobile
Works Mobile Corporation provides a cloud-based office service called
Line Works
for B2B purposes. Functions include mail, calendar, address Book,
N-drive, and web-office. Works Mobile has users mainly in Korea and
Japan, but also targets the global B2B market with help from operation
know-how of NBP(Naver Business Platform) and Naver.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naver_(corporation)
