15 Jun 2013

KakaoTalk

KakaoTalk

KakaoTalk Logo.jpg
Developer(s) KAKAO Inc.
Stable release iOS
3.6.2 (June 8, 2013; 7 days ago)
Android
3.8.3 (June 10, 2013; 5 days ago)
BlackBerry OS
2.5.3 (June 11, 2013; 4 days ago)
Samsung Bada
Unknown (April 3, 2013; 2 months ago)
Windows Phone
1.9.0.0 (May 26, 2013; 20 days ago)
Operating system iOS, Android, Bada, BlackBerry, Windows Phone
Available in Korean, English, Spanish, Chinese(Traditional), Chinese(Simplified), Indonesian, Japanese, Thai, Turkish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese
Type Mobile Messaging App
Website kakao.com/talk/en
KakaoTalk (Hangul: 카카오톡) is a free mobile messenger application for smartphones with free text and free call features. It is available on iOS, Android, Bada OS, BlackBerry and Windows 
Phone.
KakaoTalk provides free call and text messaging service. In addition, users can share diverse contents and information from photos, videos, voice messages, URL links to contact information. Both one-on-one chat and group chats are available over Wifi or 3G, and there are no limits to the number of friends to join in group chat. Recently, users in group chats can do free call. Furthermore, if someone doesn't want to call in group chats, he or she can push ignore button.
KakaoTalk automatically synchronizes with user’s contact list and find friends who are on the service. Users can also search friends by KakaoTalk ID without having to know each other's phone number. The KakaoTalk service also allows its users to export their messages and save them for future reference if the user so desires.

History

KakaoTalk was released on March 18, 2010 by Kakao Corp. Kakao Corp. was founded by Beom-Soo Kim, the former CEO of NHN Corporation (founder of Hangame, which merged with Naver.com to create NHN), the biggest IT company in South Korea. Kakao Corp. is based in Seoul, South Korea and Jae-Bum Lee and Sirgoo Lee are the current Co-CEOs. It reached 57 million users registered on August, 2012. An average of 24 million users are estimated to be using the app on a daily basis and over 3.4 billion messages are sent everyday. Kakao Corp. was named a "Top Developer" on Google's Android Market. and KakaoTalk was chosen as No.1 Free SMS App by Cnet.
On April 2013, KaKaoTalk released a beta version of KakaoTalk PC.

Kakaotalk and Globalization

Kakaotalk also is evolving as a handy tool of global communication. Internally, Kakaotalk is realizing the importance of expanding their performances in global market in order to keep sustainable growth and increase corporate value. 
On July 26th 2011, Kakao Corp. established Japanese Corp., Kakao Japan and appointed Cha-Jin Park as a representative. According to company officials, Kakaotalk appears to be very actively used in Japan.Especially when Strong Earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011, voice call traffic in Japan surged as millions of people sought to confirm the safety of friends and family. Kakaotalk played as an important data network-based communication method and successfully replaced disabled wired and wireless network and helped connect people. Kakaotalk will expand their service in various languages. Especially, they newly opened Spanish Q&A section and Spanish app to target Spanish-speaking users in South America and Europe. Kakaotalk also prepares to establish American Corporations by servicing Blackberry-only app. Currently, among 20million Kakaotalk users, about 20% are oversea users.
Starting from March 17th 2013, Kakaotalk began TV commercials in Indonesia and Vietnam by joining hands with famous Korean K-pop star, Big Bang. In the commercial, local celebrities and BigBang appears together on the screen and promote Kakaotalk. Also Kakaotalk is trying to attract global consumers by introducing its new voting system ‘Kakao Poll’ or multichannel technology in foreign markets earlier than in Korean market. The intention behind these attempt to achieve recognizable position outside of domestic market appears to be started out from fear of remaining only as a domestic demand-oriented firm. If they cannot show distinguished accomplishments in an oversea market, they would experience various ordeals or being left behind as a domestic oligopolist such as Naver, the popular search web in Korea. One venture company official claims, “I am not sure how successful the newly releasing contents distribution platform Kakao page will be, but they can no longer expect remarkable growth in a domestic market anymore, instead, to experience the great leap once again, oversea market will be a key.”

Features

Besides those listed above, KakaoTalk has also these features:
  • Free call and conference call (up to 5 people) named VoiceTalk.
  • Photo, video and contact information sharing
  • ‪All data encrypted ‬
  • Support for 12 languages
  • K-pop & Local Star Friends (Plus Friends)
  • Walkie-talkie
  • First ISO 27001 certified mobile messenger.
  • User's own KakaoTalk theme (iPhone and Android Themes)
  • No banner ads
  • Game platform

   

   

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