[99뉴스]Will the Cyworld of memories come back successfully?!

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Cyworld, the first SNS in Korea, announced a resurgence under the new name’Cyworld Z’. The memories of 32 million members came to life.

Cyworld Z announced on the 2nd that it plans to acquire Cyworld services and normalize existing services.

The sales amount of the service is KRW 1 billion. This is the same as the amount that Je-wan Jeon, the owner of the existing service, was sued for overdue wages against employees. The company explained, “By resolving overdue wages, we can begin the process of resuming services.”

The newly launched’Cyworld Z’plans to restore the data of existing members while introducing a mobile-centered mini homepage within this year.

Cyworld was born in 2001, and was a service that overcame the first SNS in Korea. Unlike today’s SNS, which functions as a platform, Cyworld was more specialized in networking.

The service that occupied the domestic SNS market in the early days was Prechallenge. However, as Prechall forcedly switched to a paid system, users were pulled out, and the services that grew at that time were Daum Cafe and Cyworld. After linking with NateOn, Cyworld will grow into a national service.

Cyworld said,’I sometimes shed tears ㅑ… ☆ Feat. It gave birth to a number of buzzwords, such as tears selfies, and music is the only drug allowed by the country. Terms such as’Ilchon’, which means my friend of Cyworld, and’Acorn,’ the currency on the website, were often used not only in broadcasts, but also in campaigns and products.

However, in the late 2000s, it was unable to respond to the changing environment to mobile and walked a path of decline. I created’Home 2’which stands for a blog and’C Log’ which stands for Twitter, but there was no inflow of users. Meanwhile, as Facebook and Instagram became mainstream, they were naturally pushed out of the market.

Cyworld, which was quiet, has risen to the surface since 2019. In October of that year, the service was interrupted, and the following year, in May of last year, the business registration qualification was canceled due to tax arrears, leading to controversy about the closure of business. There was growing concern that the’history’ of tens of millions of subscribers would disappear when access to the site itself became impossible.

However, on the 29th of last month, Cyworld Z signed a contract to transfer the Cyworld service with Je-wan Jeon on the 29th, making it possible to resume the service. Cyworld Z, a newly established corporation, is a corporation consisting of five companies, including Sky ENM, a general entertainment company. It is known that medical equipment companies and investment companies are included.

The largest shareholder of Cyworld Sky ENM is GreenBam Media, a drama production company, and Jongwon Oh, CEO of Cyworld Z, is known as a former managing director of investment in a medical equipment company. Cyworld Z, which has secured 8 billion won in investment, currently employs 40 people. It focuses on server maintenance and marketing strategy, and outsources development.

Why did Cyworld Z acquire Cyworld? This is because there are still many users who visit. Jong-won Oh, CEO of Cyworld Z <블로터>“The number of users who visited more than once a year in 2019 alone reaches 10 million,” he said. “If only the correct mobile version is released, we will be able to communicate with them sufficiently.”

Cyworld Z has two main plans. The first is to restore the mini homepage optimized for’virtual reality’ for mobile. For this, the new mobile version 3.0 is expected to focus on scalability.

The second plan is to revive the’acorn’. It has maintained its existing profit model, such as purchasing mini homepage background music (BGM), and announced plans to list virtual currency in the future.

CEO Oh Jong-won said, “In version 3.0, everyone will share the mini homepage in the virtual reality space. It will be an interesting model,” said Acorn. Even if they only receive BGM fees, it will be a huge profit model.”

According to CEO Oh, the new Cyworld service is scheduled to resume in the first week of March. Afterwards, the company plans to disclose the virtual acorn and related white papers and list them on one of the three major domestic exchanges (Bitsum, Upbit, and Coinone).

However, it is unclear whether the companies that formed the consortium have the capability to secure competitiveness in the current SNS environment. With Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram in the SNS market, it is expected to see what competitiveness Cyworld, which will be reborn, will have.

[영상디자인:김진영·박진화]