Naver (; stylized as NAVER) is a South Korean online platform operated by the

Naver Corporation Naver Corporation () is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the online ...

. The company's products include a

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

hosting,

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

s, maps, and

mobile payment Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cas ...

History

Naver was the first Korean web provider to develop its own search engine. The company was founded on June 2, 1999, and is headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea. Naver is a combination of 'navigate', which means to navigate the Internet, and the suffix '-er', which means person, which means a person who navigates the vast ocean of information on the Internet. The Naver provides community services including

blogs A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and cafes, other convenient services such as

knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A Retail#Shopper profiles, typology of shopper types ha ...

maps A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

books A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

and naver tool bar. In August 2000, Naver launched its 'comprehensive search' service, which allows users to get a variety of results from a single search query on one page, organized by type, including blogs, websites, images, and web communities. Naver became an early pioneer in

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...

through the creation of the 'Knowledge iN' (네이버 지식인)' service in 2002. In Knowledge iN, users can pose questions on any subject and select from answers provided by other users, awarding points to those who give the best answers. Knowledge iN was launched three years before Yahoo! introduced its similar 'Yahoo! Answers' service and now possesses a database of over 200 million answers. Bradley Horowitz, former Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo!, has cited Knowledge iN as the inspiration for

Yahoo! Answers Yahoo! Answers was a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or knowledge market owned by Yahoo! where users would ask questions and answer those submitted by others, and upvote them to increase their visibility. Questions were orga ...

, which was launched three years after Naver introduced the original service. Over the years, Naver has continued to expand its services. Naver Blog started with the name 'paper' in June 2003 and evolved to '

' in October 2003. 'Webtoon' is a South Korean webtoon publisher launched in 2004 by Naver. In May 2005, Naver started the Real-time Search service. The rising search terms was a chart in Naver that highlighted trending topics in real-time. The top searches would appear on the portal main page reaching a large number of users. From 2005 to 2007, Naver expanded its multimedia search services, including music and video search, as well as

mobile search Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile (b ...

. Naver had launched a messaging app called Line for the South Korean market in February 2011. In 2019, Naver reorganized its mobile version of the main screen, excluding search windows and some menus. In response, more than 3,000 comments opposing the change were posted. In October 2023, Naver announced the beta release of its

AI chatbot A chatbot (originally chatterbot) is a software application or web interface designed to have textual or spoken conversations. Modern chatbots are typically online and use generative artificial intelligence systems that are capable of main ...

service, 'CLOVA X' (클로바X). Naver mobile map application has begun providing real-time service on natural disaster information starting this September 15, 2024.

Services

Naver Dictionary

Naver Dictionary was launched in 1999, alongside Naver. It initially supported only Korean and English. , it supports 67 languages. The dictionary aggregates results from a number of other dictionaries, including

Urimalsaem ''Urimalsaem'' () is an online open source Korean language dictionary. It was launched on October 5, 2016, with an initial set of 1,109,722 headwords. It aims to capture neologisms (new words), jargon, colloquial expressions, and words specific t ...

, which is operated by the

National Institute of Korean Language The National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL; ) is a language regulator of the Korean language based in Seoul, South Korea. It was created on January 23, 1991, by Presidential Decree No. 13163 (November 14, 1990). It has previously gone by a ...

. It also aggregates results from English-language dictionaries such as

Oxford Dictionary of English The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' (''ODE'') is a single-volume English dictionary published by Oxford University Press, first published in 1998 as ''The New Oxford Dictionary of English'' (''NODE''). The word "New" was dropped from the titl ...

and the

Collins English Dictionary The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow. It was first published in 1979. Corpus The dictionary uses language research based on the Collins Corpus, which is ...

. It also operates an open-source dictionary called Open Dictionary PRO (ODP).

Junior Naver

Junior Naver (쥬니어 네이버), also known as Juniver (쥬니버), is a portal website for children, similar to Yahooligans. Junior Naver offers services such as avatars, educational content, quizzes, videos, Q&A, and a homework helper. It uses a panel of experts and educators to filter out harmful content, ensuring a safe internet environment for children. With its competitors Daum Kids and Yahoo Kids having closed down, Junior Naver is now the only children's portal site operating in Korea.

Knowledge iN

Knowledge iN (지식iN), formerly Knowledge Search (지식검색), is an online Q&A platform launched in October 2002. The tool allows users to ask any question and receive answers from other users. Naver became an early pioneer in

through the creation of the 'Knowledge iN' (네이버 지식인)' service in 2002. Bradley Horowitz, former Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo!, has cited Knowledge iN as the inspiration for

, which was launched three years after Naver introduced the original service. Naver encourages unauthorized publishing to attract users to its Knowledge iN service. This contributes to poor-quality content on Knowledge iN, as previous answers to questions remain unchanged and old questions can be minimally only modified by other users. Criticism is also growing due to Naver's unilateral control over comments and its editing of information that may contradict its political positions. Teens and people in their twenties accounted for 70% of the questioners and 50% of the respondents. In April 2024, the service was reorganized so that answers could be continuously registered without closing questions, and new answers could be registered even if there were adopted answers. In addition, the limit on the number of additional questions and additional answers has disappeared. Even if someone is not a questioner or an answerer, he can express your support for the answers that he likes.

Naver Webtoon

Naver Webtoon (네이버 웹툰), later simply WEBTOON, is a webcomic platform where users have free access to a variety of webtoons created by professional artists. Users can also pay publishers to view comic books and genre fiction content online. Naver has incorporated a 'Challenge' section that allows amateurs to post and promote their works.

Naver Cafe

Naver Cafe (네이버 카페) is a service that allows Naver users to create their own internet

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place (geography), place, set of Norm (social), norms, culture, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Ide ...

. As of May 2017, 10.5 million cafes were active. Each person can create up to 300 cafes. From January to August 2024, Naver Cafe's MAU averaged 30 million, up about 10% from the previous year.

Naver Blog

Naver Blog (네이버 블로그) started with the name 'paper' in June 2003 and evolved to '

' in October 2003. It had 23 million users as of April 2016. In 2023, there were 1.26 million new users. For two weeks from May 1, 2021, Naver held an event to pay up to 16,000 won to people who posted on Naver's blog every day. However, this event ended early due to several incidents involving people with multiple IDs. Many participants in the event criticized Naver's response.

Naver announced on its official blog that it would resume its "Today's Diary Challenge (#오늘일기챌린지)" event, which ended early in three days, from May 24. However, only those who participated in the previously discontinued event (who completed the three-day record) can participate in the event.

On May 13, 2021, Naver announced that it would display profile pictures along with comments posted on Naver news articles. Previously, only the first four digits of the author's ID were disclosed, making it difficult to identify users. Naver implemented this change expecting it to facilitate user recognition and address issues with malicious comments. Critics, however, criticized the company for censoring comments.

Naver NOW

Naver NOW (formerly Naver TV) is a video streaming and sharing platform that primarily offers web dramas distributed by Naver. Naver NOW replaced the Naver TV mobile app, while Naver TV continues to serve as a web portal.

Naver Pay

In June 2015, Naver launched its own payment service, Naver Pay, which allows mobile payment service and online checkout. It is Naver's second mobile payment service after Line Pay. Naver Pay is the most widely used mobile payment service in South Korea.

Naver Mail

Naver Mail (네이버 메일) is an email service available to all Naver users. Each user is provided with up to 5GB of storage.

Naver News

Naver News (네이버 뉴스) is a

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, content aggregator, feed reader, news reader, or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates digital Content (media), content such as online newsp ...

operated by Naver since 2000. The website co-founded a committee with Daum News to evaluate news presses for the service in 2015, but it was indefinitely shut down in 2023 after allegations of biased audit. It also runs Naver Enter, a subdivision focusing on

entertainment news Entertainment journalism is any form of journalism that focuses on popular culture and the entertainment business and its products. Like fashion journalism, entertainment journalism covers industry-specific news while targeting general audiences b ...

Naver Shopping Live

Naver Shopping Live (네이버 쇼핑 라이브) is a live commerce platform operated by Naver. Broadcasts can be transmitted via mobile phones or camcorders, with a resolution of 1080*1920 and a vertical format similar to YouTube shorts. It is currently the platform with the highest number of consumers in Korea. As of 2023, 73.6% of mobile shoppers in South Korea use Naver Shopping Live as their primary platform.

PRISM Live Studio

PRISM Live Studio (프리즘 라이브 스튜디오) is a

live streaming Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...

application available for both mobile and PC users. Streamers can simultaneously broadcast to multiple platforms, a practice known as

simulcasting Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

, with support for up to 1080p HD resolution without increasing network usage. Supported platforms include YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Periscope, V Live, Naver TV, afreecaTV, KakaoTV, and RTMP channels. The application can also be utilized for video editing purposes.

Naver Papago

In July 2017, Naver launched Papago, which is an AI-based mobile translator that uses a large neural network technology named N2MT (Naver Neural Machine Translation). It can translate text and phrases in 15 different languages by analyzing context instead of statistical analysis. Papago app has so far garnered over 16 million downloads.

Search engine features and restrictions

Naver has been criticized for abusing Real-time Search Terms (급상승 검색어) to manipulate public opinion.. As a result, Naver abolished Real-time Search Terms on February 25, 2021.

Notes

References

External links

*
Naver Webtoon

Naver Cafe

Naver Blog

Naver TV

Knowledge iN
{{S&P Asia 50 Blog hosting services Webmail Internet search engines Naver Corporation Web portals Internet television streaming services Livestreaming software 1999 establishments in South Korea