Cyworld’s Global Ambitions Are Over

[uledy.livejournal.com]

Cyworld, once Korea's largest social networking service, decided to end its global service on Feb. 10 after failing to compete against global SNS sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Collapsing after less than three years, Cyworld plans to maintain its Korean service, but it is currently reviewing an employee buyout plan and is parting from SK Communications, which acquired it 2003.

According to the IT industry, SK Communications has already notified Cyworld users that it will terminate the service and has posted a notice on its home page.

Cyworld went international in November 2011 with the hope of benefiting from the Hallyu, or Korean Wave, of cultural exports. It provided lots of content regarding Korean music groups and actors and interviews with celebrities as part of its marketing strategy. It offered its services in seven languages.

The number of its subscribers peaked at 35 million.

But premature expansion outside of Korea, a slowness to move onto mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets, and a security breach in which the personal information of its 35 million users were hacked helped bring Cyworld down.

Most of Cyworld users migrated to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

"Almost everyone in the country once used Cyworld, and some people still have more than one Cyworld account", said a spokesperson for SK Communications.

"Even though they moved to Facebook and Twitter, people still have their photos and journals left on their Cyworld accounts and we have a tremendous amount of data to proceed and maintain. Thus, the cost of running the service and still maintaining their data is quite burdensome". No Internet service enjoyed such heady success in the domestic SNS market as Cyworld.

When Cyworld's "minihompi", equivalent to Facebook's Timeline, first appeared in 2001, established by the EBIZ Club run by students of the Kaist Graduate School of Technology Management, it attracted enormous popularity.

Virtual money called "dotori" allowed users to purchase music to put on their minihompi and buy decorative items, too. They posted photos, videos, journals and interacted with friends. Koreans used Cyworld both at home and abroad to get in touch with people.

Even political figures such as President Park Geun-hye, as a lawmaker during the 2004-5 period, communicated with people through Cyworld.

But with the spread of smart phones, the popularity of Cyworld went downhill.

As Facebook and Twitter entered the domestic market, offering mobile services, Cyworld adhered to its PC-based services.

After a cyberattack got the personal information of its users, more than 7 million people closed their accounts.

Cyworld was in the red for eight consecutive quarters until the third quarter of last year, and SK Communications has already cut the number of Cyworld employees by half, reducing the 64 teams at the company's headquarters to 19.

"As its failure and weakness mainly resulted from its slow adaptation to the mobile era, quick decision-making is the key to its restructuring", the company spokesman explained.

SK Communications plans to concentrate on its portal Nate and messenger Nate On.

It will also try to make Cymera, a camera and photo editing app, a new growth driver and establish foreign subsidiaries in the United States

Cymera has been posting a high number of downloads from Southeast Asia, the United States, South America and Europe.

Source: korejoongangdaily via hancinema

yea, they sent users notifications maybe a couple of months ago, but here's more detail.

Comments

[twinkystar16.livejournal.com]

i think me2day also ended their service too

[rawbabyoctopus.livejournal.com]

Me2day is ending too? That's sad.
Lee Jongsuk still actively uses it, though. Oh well, I guess he's going to have to move someplace else now.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

here's the email they sent out:

Hello, this is me2day.

We are very sorry to notify you that me2day service will be terminated from June 30, 2014.

We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to our users who showed great support for our service and deeply apologize for not being able to continue the service.

Since its launch in February 2007, as the first SNS service in Korea, me2day has been loved by many users. However, much to our regret, we have decided to end the service and come back with more other valued services.

We are deeply sorry that we have to terminate me2day that had grown so far thanks to your unwavering support.

You can continue to use me2day until June 30, 2014 as now. We are currently developing ways to help you backup contents that you had created on me2day. We will get back to you as soon as possible through email on how to back-up as well as items available.

And for the users who have paid tokens through gift or purchase, refund will be made according to terms stipulated in the Terms of Use. The details of refund process will be notified to you as well.

Upon termination of service on June 30, 2014, your personal information will be destroyed in a safe manner.

We thank you again for the support you had shown for me2day and we will make our best effort to minimize any inconvenience that you might experience until the termination of service.

Thank you very much.
Me2day

[rawbabyoctopus.livejournal.com]

That's weird...I don't think I received any in my email.
Thank you :)

[luvey.livejournal.com]

yes they did.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

yes! you're right. i got confused, it was me2day that sent out emails a couple of months ago. i think the service ends this summer?

[amandaplan.livejournal.com]

me too

[redhandedjilll.livejournal.com]

I remember they had a US version of Cyworld waaay back in the day they eventually closed, too. I had no idea about this global one.

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

yeah i rmb the us ver too and i was jealous cause i live in canada

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

does anyone even use fb that much these days? idk but i feel like it's dying down compared to before

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

well here in my country it still seems alive and kicking

[twinkystar16.livejournal.com]

lol i still see some rant posts on fb

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

and i still use it to upload photos cos people want dem ~tags~

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

which country are you from? curious

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

republic of the philippines

[anconeous.livejournal.com]

Dunno. My Facebook account's only really alive because all my school shit is through Facebook. Projects done through the groups and chat. Announcements are made over the groups, etc. sigh. I can't even quit and deactivate because I really need the account.

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

yeah same. for me, the only time i use fb is cause whenever there's projects or group work, we all assemble through fb and it's chat. but other than that, no use for it

[twinkystar16.livejournal.com]

i only check FB for some photos and wedding invitations

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

this is me ;_;

[babyonions.livejournal.com]

Facebook is for school stuff and stalking people who still use it actively lol

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

It's used a lot where I live.

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

where do you live?

[fantaesticbaby.livejournal.com]

i didn't use facebook at all until I got to uni. Now I use it everyday because my uni clubs use it to organise parties and club events. And usually I will give someone my facebook instead of giving them my phone number (but that's due to my phone sucking and not being able to send messages or phone calls to like 90% of other phones)

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

yeah i find that it's mostly used for school related stuff but i find it easier cause you can gather everyone you need and just do wat you need to do. and lol my phone sucks too

[rikayla.livejournal.com]

same. i just say "add me on facebook" instead of giving people my number LOL

[fantaesticbaby.livejournal.com]

it's so much less hassle than trying to remember my phone number esp if i'm drunk loool

[sayitisso.livejournal.com]

idk in other countries but i'm in taiwan rn and people post /everything/ on fb, add everyone and their mothers on fb, basically live on fb. when i heard it's dying down in other places i was really shocked lol

[batterydead.livejournal.com]

yeah it's surprising too but it might just be due to the city i live in + age group. the younger folks in my city are using twitter and instagram now cause it's new and cool. the age group that prob uses fb the most would be middle-age

and lawl i rmb when my dad tried to add me and i was like not today dad not today

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

most of my friends connect their twitter + insta to their fbs (to make it known that they have insta and twitter to have more followers idrk). there are also lots of really young users (their parents make them fb accnts and IDKW)

plus yeah i tried to deactivate once but omfg i cannot live w/o fb because all school shit can be found there :( and no one texts these days... u might just end up going to one of your classes and arrive just to find out that theres no class that day adjsnfk

[kisschuu.livejournal.com]

I'm a high school student in NY and its still very much alive lol. Everyone still uses it and there are still people making new ones too.

[tirabush.livejournal.com]

hello

[xblackchristmas.livejournal.com]

next up: Me2Day

[fallingstarryuu.livejournal.com]

you're a little too late with that comment

[amandaplan.livejournal.com]

never even knew they were open but now im sad to find out to know me2day is gone too even though i didn't use it.

[bumie.livejournal.com]

it's an end of era