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Daum returns to face Naver in search market
By Yoon Sung-won
Daum Kakao, the operator of the mobile messenger app KakaoTalk, launched a mobile search service Tuesday.
It said the new service "KakaoSearch" runs on its messenger app and has integrated Daum's web search engine and its database to help users look up information on their phones and share with others.
"The new service is what the company has worked on to create synergy since the merger last October," Daum Kakao's search team leader Hermann Lee said during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. "The new service aims at quickly providing our users with information, optimized for the small screens of mobile devices."
To help users access the KakaoSearch service, Daum Kakao added a new function named "KakaoTalk #Search" to its messenger app.
With the new function, users can use the text input line of the messenger tool as a search box to mark the keyword that they want to inquire about. This will open a new window that shows the search results.
Users can also post the information in a chat box to share with conversation partners, the company said.
Users can access the KakaoSearch service through the KakaoTalk #Search function, the mobile social contents hub service KakaoTalk Channel, as well as Daum's mobile app and website, the company said. It added it does not plan to launch the new search service for the messenger's desktop version.
The new service is connected to part of Daum's web search database and Kakao's social network and micro-blogs.
The company has established the nation's largest web document coverage by gathering more than 15 billion documents.
"We will work to improve the search database by including more databases in and outside the company," Lee said.
Expectations are that Daum Kakao will compete with the nation's leading web portal Naver in the search engine market. Daum Communications has operated the nation's second-largest web portal and search engine service but has experienced difficulties retaining users.
Daum Kakao's KakaoTalk team leader Brandon Park said, "We thought the existing mobile search services were not much different from what we used to have on personal computers even though platforms have changed. So we tried to devise an entirely different approach for mobile searches."
Daum Kakao cited data showing that KakaoTalk is the most frequently run mobile application among Android smartphone users in Korea as of the first quarter of this year.
Tapping into KakaoTalk's 38 million users here, the company has introduced various extra services including the social network app KakaoStory, e-commerce service KakaoPay and call taxi app KakaoTaxi.
"The new services such as mobile searching and contents hub will help KakaoTalk evolve into a lifestyle platform that makes users' lives more convenient," Park said. "In the global messenger market, services like WeChat are changing into integrated lifestyle platforms. We seek to do the same for KakaoTalk and add more functions."
Park also said the company is interested in linking its search service to mobile shopping and e-commerce.
"What we announced today is only a limited part of our plan. We will actively work to realize such e-commerce functions," he said.
