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Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#22The title needs to be changed to be more clear, Path and Path talk the apps were acquired, the company is going to produce other apps and support an app they already have in the market called "Kong".
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#23Signals the official end of web 2.0 to me. A whimper instead of a bang.
Path is so web 2.0 and the worst look to have this year is to be old when we're at the beginning of a third wave full of youngsters that wouldn't be caught dead trying to update their path timeline.
Path Talk would have been an expensive land war that required a big sales army to win over one small shop at a time.
So if Path is to Facebook then Kong is to Snapchat.
If Marky Mark can't buy Snapchat then buying a second-run owned by a former insider ain't too bad either.
That's the end game.
Or, just rely on that Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley money to finally roll in.
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#24The title needs to be changed to be more clear, Path and Path talk the apps were acquired, the company is going to produce other apps and support an app they already have in the market called "Kong".
Ok, we changed the title.
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#25Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
In turn, KakaoTalk is extremely similar to LINE, an application developed by the Japanese subsidiary of Daum's rival Naver. LINE seems to dominate the Japanese messenging market almost as strongly as KKT dominates South Korea (it's probably not possible to be functional socially without a KKT account there).
I've lived in Korea, my experience was you gave out phone numbers when meeting new people, KakaoTalk automatically scans new contacts and adds them to your KakaoTalk contacts and all subsequent texting and photo sharing was through KakaoTalk. I only texted one person regularly while I lived there, my boss; my boss had a KakaoTalk account but didn't use it (with me at least). I still use it, it's a very good messaging…
Currently living in Japan, and I haven't given my phone number out to anyone yet. It's all exchanging LINE info (mostly using the QR functionality, sometimes just the ID). Almost everyone has a Facebook, but I don't think the messaging component is widely used. Almost all messaging, and even most voice calls, go through LINE.
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard of KakaoTalk before; it's one of the most popular messaging applications in South Korea. According to Wikipedia it's used by 93% of smartphone owners in South Korea [1]. Daum Kakao is the parent company, and looks to have their fingers in a lot of generic web services pies. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk
In turn, KakaoTalk is extremely similar to LINE, an application developed by the Japanese subsidiary of Daum's rival Naver. LINE seems to dominate the Japanese messenging market almost as strongly as KKT dominates South Korea (it's probably not possible to be functional socially without a KKT account there).
When I was in Japan last fall locals were astounded to find that I (an American) didn't have a LINE account. I'd never even heard of it.
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#28Anyone know what Daum Kakao does?
I'm Korean so let me explain about the company.
Daum KaKao is combined company of Daum communications & KaKao.
Daum Communications is an internet company, mainly focused on internet portal service like Yahoo!. (It is second largest portal in Korea, the first is Naver)
KaKao made a KaKaoTalk, which is dominant messaging app in South Korea.
Naver, which is the number one internet company in Korea has both of internet portal and messaging app (LINE, which is dominant messaging app in Japan and Taiwan) so Daum and KaKao are merged in 2014.
Daum KaKao now focusing on mobile service since it has dominant messaging app in Korea. The reason why they acquired Path is they want to enter Southeast Asia market, which Naver and Tencent WeChat already have largest portion. (Daum KaKao said that they acquired Path because of Indonesian market. Path has many users in Indonesia)
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#29The company has not been acquired, just the Path and Path Talk apps. I actually do not understand that part - what exactly does the company hope to do with Kong? How is the company supporting 40+ headcount now?
Well they just got a cash injection from selling Path & Path Talk so I can imagine that should help support 40+ headcount for a little while. Along with the $25m they raised a year ago.
Re: Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
#30From this acquisition, I just hope that Path won't turn into Kakao/LINE-like application, where they offer useless stickers, and try to look 'cute'.