Daum (Korean: 다음) is a South Korean web portal. It offers various Internet services to web users, including a popular free web-based e-mail, messaging services, shopping, news services.[1]
History
The former Daum Communications Corporation was founded in 1994 by Park Geon-hee and Lee Jae-woong (businessperson), and the company launched the namesake portal in May 1997 making it the first South Korean web portal.[1]
Daum offers various Internet services to web users, including a popular free web-based e-mail, messaging services, shopping, news services.[1]
Daum company also develops and distributes the freeware media player PotPlayer.[1]
In addition to its freeware media player (Daum tvPot), Daum Communications Corp. provides a variety of services such as clouding service (Daum Cloud), Daum Dictionary (applicable on mobile devices), Daum Comics, and map service (Daum Maps).[3]
Daum has about 874 employees as of March 2009, and was the 2nd largest web portal service provider in South Korea in terms of daily visits.[4]
In 2014, Daum merged with Kakao Corp. (at that time known as Kakao Inc.), known as the maker of KakaoTalk, to form Daum Kakao.[5]
Service
Daum Mail
The popularity of Daum stems from the range of services it offers, but also from the fact that it was the first Korean web portal of significant size. Daum popularity started when it merged with the then most popular e-mail service, daum.net or hanmail.net.[1]
Daum Cafe
After the merging, Daum started the forum service Daum Cafe which brought it firm status in the market. Daum received the eighth-highest trust rating in a 2020 Reuters Institute survey of selected South Korean media outlets.[6]