Daum (web portal)

Daum (Korean: 다음) is a South Korean web portal. It offers many Internet services to web users, including a popular free web-based e-mail, messaging service, forums, shopping, news and webtoon service. The word "daum" means "next" and also "diverse voices".[1]

Daum
Type of site
Web portal
Available inKorean
OwnerKakao Corp.
URLwww.daum.net
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedMay 1997 (1997-05)
Current statusOnline
Daum
Hangul
다음
Revised RomanizationDaeum
McCune–ReischauerTaŭm

Background

The popularity of Daum stems from the range of services it offers, but also from the fact that it was the first Korean web portal of significant size. Its popularity started when it merged with the then most popular e-mail service, daum.net or hanmail.net. After the merging, Daum started the forum service Daum Cafe which brought its firm status in the market. Daum received the eighth highest trust rating in a 2020 Reuters Institute survey of selected South Korean media outlets.[2]

History

The former Daum Communications Corporation (Korean: ㈜다음커뮤니케이션) was founded in 1994 by Park Geon-hee and Lee Jae-woong, and the company launched the namesake portal in May 1997 making it the first South Korean web portal, four months earlier than yahoo! Korea.[lower-alpha 1]

From 2003, Daum started on-line direct automobile insurance by launching the subsidiary 'Daum Direct Auto Insurance' and from 2008, it became a partnership company with ERGO Insurance Group.

On August 2, 2004, Daum announced the purchase of Lycos for $95.4 million, and closed the transaction on October 6.[3] As part of a corporate restructuring to focus on mobile, social networks and location-based services, Daum sold Lycos for $36 million in August 2010 to Ybrant Digital, an internet marketing company based in Hyderabad, India.[4]

In 2006, they started a blogging service Tistory with 'Tatter and Company',[5] a blogging platform developing company and in July 2007 Daum took over all rights to manage the services.

The company also develops and distributes the freeware media player PotPlayer. In addition to its freeware media player (Daum tvPot), Daum Communications Corp. provides variety of services such as clouding service (Daum Cloud), Daum Dictionary (applicable on mobile devices), Daum Comics, and map service (Daum Maps).

Daum has about 874 employees as of March, 2009 and is the 2nd largest web portal service provider in South Korea in terms of daily visits.[6]

In 2014, Daum merged with Kakao Corp. (at that time known as Kakao Inc.), known as the maker of KakaoTalk, to form Daum Kakao.[7]

Security warning

The e-mail address ceos1[@]daum[.]net; is currently (Jun 2019) being used by the London Blue group of cybercriminals in a business email compromise scam.[8][9][10]

See also

Notes
  1. Naver was launched on June 1999 while Nate started to operate on October 2001. Google, the world leader, entered the South Korean market in 2006.

References
  1. "Daum Corporate Identity info page". Archived from the original on 2014-03-28. Retrieved 2014-05-07.
  2. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020 (PDF). University of Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. p. 102.
  3. "Korean Daum Acquires Lycos U.S." Lycos. 2004-10-06. Archived from the original on 2007-02-28. Retrieved 2007-01-25.
  4. "Ybrant Digital Buys Lycos for $36 Million". Retrieved 2011-03-07.
  5. In 2008, Google Korea acquired 'Tatter and Company':"Google Buys South Korean Blog Company TNC". InformationWeek. 2008-10-12.
  6. "NHN, 포털 1위 쉽게 내주지 않을 것-교보". 이데일리 (in Korean). 2009-06-03. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  7. Shu, Catherine. "Kakao And Daum To Merge, Creating One Of South Korea's Largest Internet Companies".
  8. "London Blue, April 2019 Update, UK-Based Multinational Gang Evolves Their Tactics, Targeting Asian Users and Spoofing Email Addresses" (PDF). Agari Data, Inc.
  9. "Top CFOs are being targeted by a sophisticated email scam". CNN.
  10. "'London Blue' hacker group targets chief financial officers". Financial Times.
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