Another Brick In Kakao’s Defensive Wall, Against Japanese Invader, Line

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2013년 02월 18일 Sue J. Hur

KakaoTalk, Korea’s leading social messaging service has launched a new mobile social album service that enables users to share their photos with their friends. This is the latest in Kakao’s strenuous diversification efforts, as it tries to keep up with Line, its major domestic competitor. Line was launched a year after Kakao Talk and Kakao has complained that NHN Corp. (the Korean conglomerate behind the app, developed by Line in Japan) has unashamedly copied several aspects of its UX and UI. Line has recently been making a concerted effort to invade Kakao’s territory in Korea. The rivalry is particularly bitter as Kakao’s CEO was also a co-founder of NHN Corporation.

Kakao announced on February 12 that it had launched ‘Kakao Album’, a service that enables users to create albums using photos stored on their smartphones. Additionally users can invite friends to share their photos, building on Kakao’s strong ‘social’ heritage.

The users of Kakao Album can invite different friends a range of different albums and invited friends can add their own smartphone photos into the album. It remains to be seen if this service can differentiate itself from the plethora of photo sharing apps that have emerged as late. Kakao does have one advantage in that it has a loyal user base of 75M users through its highly successful messeging service to build from.

Kakao Album has a "recommend" function that makes it easier for users to create an album by inviting friends who took photos at the same time and location with them. This function is available when the GPS function of a smartphone turns on and the users have the same GPS position as their friends.

Other Articles on the Kakao-Line rivalry:
Kakao Talk Strides Into Line’s Japanese Territory by Releasing Their Games Platform on iOS
Essential Data for Global App Developers, Eyeing Up The Lucrative Japan And Korea Markets
Line at 100M Users – Kakao Faltering? Battle for Messaging Heats Up