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Naver

This article is about the South Korean online platform, a digital ecosystem that's become as ubiquitous in its home country as the air you breathe. If you're looking for the corporate entity behind it, that's Naver Corporation. Don't confuse the two; it's a common, if uninspired, mistake.

NAVER Company

The logo, a clean, modern iteration, has been in use since 2018. It’s understated, much like the company’s approach to market dominance.

  • Trade name: NAVER
  • Company type: Subsidiary
  • Industry:
  • Founded: June 2, 1999. That's 26 years ago, for those who struggle with temporal calculations.
  • Founder: Lee Hae-jin. A name that’s etched into the digital landscape of South Korea, whether you recognize it or not.
  • Headquarters: Seongnam-si, South Korea. A city that’s become synonymous with technological advancement, at least on a national scale.
  • Area served: Worldwide. Though its heart beats strongest in Korea, its reach extends far beyond.
  • Products: A rather extensive list, including NAVER Mail, NAVER Map, and NAVER News, among many others that populate its digital universe.
  • Parent: Naver Corporation. The overarching entity, the architect of this digital kingdom.
  • Korean name: 네이버 주식회사
    • RR: Neibeo jusikhoesa
    • MR: Neibŏ chusikhoesa
  • Website: naver.com. A gateway to its vast offerings.

Naver, stylized as NAVER, is more than just a search engine; it's a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. Think of it as a digital Swiss Army knife, offering everything from a search engine and email hosting to blogs, maps, and even mobile payment solutions. It’s designed to be comprehensive, to be the first and last stop for many online activities.

History

Naver wasn't just another player in the nascent South Korean internet scene; it was the first to forge its own path with a proprietary search engine. Founded on June 2, 1999, and firmly rooted in Seongnam, South Korea, Naver is a portmanteau of 'navigate' and the suffix '-er,' conjuring an image of someone expertly guiding themselves through the digital expanse. This wasn't just a clever name; it was a mission statement.

Beyond mere search, Naver cultivated a rich ecosystem of community services, including its well-known blogs and cafes, alongside practical tools like knowledge bases, shopping portals, mapping services, books databases, e-mail functionality, and a dedicated Naver toolbar. It aimed for a holistic online experience.

A significant leap came in August 2000 with the introduction of its 'comprehensive search' service. This was a paradigm shift, consolidating diverse results—from blogs and websites to images and web communities—onto a single, organized page. No more scattering your attention across multiple tabs; Naver brought the information to you, neatly categorized.

Naver's early embrace of user-generated content was particularly prescient, exemplified by the 2002 launch of 'Knowledge iN' (네이버 지식인). This wasn't just a Q&A forum; it was a community-driven knowledge repository where users could pose questions and receive answers from peers, with a point system to incentivize quality contributions. Knowledge iN predated Yahoo!'s similar endeavor, 'Yahoo! Answers,' by three years, and has since amassed a staggering database of over 200 million answers.

Bradley Horowitz, a former Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo!, even acknowledged Knowledge iN as the direct inspiration for Yahoo! Answers. It’s a testament to Naver's foresight in recognizing the power of collective intelligence.

The platform’s evolution continued relentlessly. Naver Blog, initially launched as 'paper' in June 2003, transitioned to its current form in October 2003. Then came 'Webtoon' in 2004, a South Korean webcomic platform that would go on to become a global phenomenon.

May 2005 marked the debut of the Real-time Search service, a feature that displayed trending topics as they emerged. This "rising search terms" chart became a fixture on the portal's main page, offering users an immediate pulse on what the collective consciousness was buzzing about.

Between 2005 and 2007, Naver strategically expanded its multimedia search capabilities, incorporating music and video searches, and also ventured into mobile search as smartphones began their ascent. The company also launched a messaging app, Line, tailored for the South Korean market in February 2011, though its global impact would be felt through its international iteration.

In 2019, a significant redesign of Naver's mobile interface, which notably excluded search windows and certain menus, sparked considerable user backlash. Over 3,000 comments were posted in opposition, a clear indication that users had strong opinions about their digital environment.

More recently, in October 2023, Naver announced the beta release of 'CLOVA X' (클로바X), its ambitious AI chatbot service, signaling a move into the next frontier of artificial intelligence.

And on September 15, 2024, the Naver mobile map application began offering real-time information on natural disaster events, a critical service for public safety.

Services

Naver’s offerings are extensive, designed to cater to a wide spectrum of user needs.

Naver Dictionary

Launched concurrently with Naver itself in 1999, the Naver Dictionary initially focused on Korean and English. By 2024, its linguistic repertoire had expanded to encompass 67 languages. It’s not just a standalone entity; it aggregates content from various sources, including Urimalsaem, managed by the National Institute of Korean Language, and renowned English dictionaries like the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Collins English Dictionary. It even maintains an open-source dictionary project, Open Dictionary PRO (ODP).

Junior Naver

Junior Naver (쥬니어 네이버), also known as Juniver (쥬니버), is essentially a children's digital playground. It functions as a portal specifically for younger users, akin to the defunct Yahooligans. It offers a curated selection of services, including avatars, educational content, quizzes, videos, a Q&A section, and homework assistance. A panel of experts and educators diligently vets content to ensure a safe online space, a crucial role given that it's now the sole surviving children's portal in Korea, following the closure of competitors like Daum Kids and Yahoo Kids.

Knowledge iN

Knowledge iN (지식iN), formerly known as Knowledge Search (지식검색), is the Q&A platform that put Naver on the map for user-generated content. Launched in October 2002, it allows users to ask anything and receive answers from fellow users. As previously mentioned, its influence was significant enough to inspire Yahoo! Answers.

However, Naver's encouragement of "unauthorized publishing" to boost user engagement on Knowledge iN has also led to criticism regarding content quality. Old answers can linger without updates, and modifications to existing questions are minimal. Furthermore, Naver's perceived unilateral control over comments and its editorial decisions on information that might challenge its viewpoints have drawn scrutiny. Notably, the demographic of users is heavily weighted towards younger individuals, with teens and those in their twenties constituting a significant portion of both questioners and respondents. In a bid to revitalize the service, April 2024 saw a reorganization allowing for continuous answer registration without closing questions, and the removal of limits on additional questions and answers, even when an answer has already been adopted.

Naver Webtoon

Naver Webtoon (네이버 웹툰), later rebranded simply as WEBTOON, is a platform that democratized the webcomic industry. It provides free access to a vast array of webtoons created by professional artists. For those seeking more, paid options are available for comic books and genre fiction. The 'Challenge' section is particularly noteworthy, offering a space for amateur creators to showcase their work and gain exposure. Its global impact has been substantial, with the platform becoming a significant player in the digital comics space worldwide.

Naver Cafe

Naver Cafe (네이버 카페) is the engine behind Naver's thriving online communities. It empowers users to establish their own virtual gathering spaces. By May 2017, an astonishing 10.5 million cafes were active, with individuals permitted to create up to 300 each. The platform remains robust, with its average monthly active users (MAU) between January and August 2024 showing a healthy increase of about 10% year-on-year, reaching 30 million.

Naver Blog

Naver Blog (네이버 블로그) has a history dating back to June 2003 as 'paper', before morphing into its current iteration in October 2003. It commanded a substantial user base of 23 million as of April 2016, and continued to grow, attracting 1.26 million new users in 2023 alone.

An event held in May 2021, offering incentives for daily blog posts, ended prematurely due to widespread abuse involving multiple IDs. This led to considerable criticism of Naver's handling of the situation. The event, dubbed "Today's Diary Challenge (#오늘일기챌린지)," was later reinstated on May 24, but participation was restricted to those who had successfully completed the initial three-day record.

Further controversy arose on May 13, 2021, when Naver announced it would display profile pictures alongside comments on news articles, a move intended to enhance user accountability and combat malicious comments. However, critics decried this as a form of censorship.

Naver NOW

Naver NOW, formerly Naver TV, is a dynamic video streaming and sharing platform, primarily distributing original web dramas produced by Naver. While the Naver NOW service replaced the Naver TV mobile app, Naver TV itself continues to function as a web portal for video content.

Naver Pay

Launched in June 2015, Naver Pay is Naver's second foray into mobile payments, following the earlier Line Pay. It offers seamless mobile payment and online checkout capabilities, establishing itself as the most widely adopted mobile payment service in South Korea.

Naver Mail

Naver Mail (네이버 메일) is a standard email service offered to all Naver users, providing each with a generous 5GB of storage.

Naver News

Naver News (네이버 뉴스) functions as a news aggregator since its inception in 2000. In 2015, it co-founded a committee with Daum News to vet news outlets for inclusion, a process that was indefinitely suspended in 2023 amidst allegations of bias. The service also includes Naver Enter, a dedicated section for entertainment news.

Naver Shopping Live

Naver Shopping Live (네이버 쇼핑 라이브) has emerged as the leading live commerce platform in Korea. Capable of broadcasting in vertical format (1080x1920 resolution) via mobile phones or camcorders, it mirrors the format of platforms like YouTube Shorts. By 2023, a significant 73.6% of mobile shoppers in South Korea relied on Naver Shopping Live as their primary platform for live shopping experiences.

PRISM Live Studio

PRISM Live Studio (프리즘 라이브 스튜디오) is a versatile live streaming application catering to both mobile and PC users. It enables simulcasting across multiple platforms simultaneously, supporting up to 1080p HD resolution without compromising network performance. Supported platforms are extensive, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Periscope, V Live, Naver TV, afreecaTV, KakaoTV, and various RTMP channels. The application also doubles as a video editing tool.

Naver Papago

Launched in July 2017, Papago is an AI-powered mobile translator utilizing N2MT (Naver Neural Machine Translation) technology. It translates text and phrases across 15 languages by analyzing context, a more sophisticated approach than traditional statistical methods. The Papago app has achieved significant adoption, with over 16 million downloads.

Search engine features and restrictions

Naver has faced criticism, particularly concerning its Real-time Search Terms (급상승 검색어) feature, with accusations of its use to manipulate public opinion. In response to these concerns, Naver abolished the Real-time Search Terms on February 25, 2021. It’s a move that highlights the delicate balance between providing trending information and maintaining neutrality.

The information presented here is a detailed expansion of the original article, aiming to provide a more comprehensive understanding of Naver's services and history. While striving for accuracy, it's important to note that the digital landscape is constantly shifting, and specific details may evolve.