Cyworld seeks to return to mainstream with news curation app

Cyworld, a South Korean first-generation social networking site that once dominated the country’s cyberspace, announced Monday the launch of a news curation app called “Que,” seeking to become Korea’s leading online news platform.

The Korean social networking service firm’s news curation app consists of two main sections: the curation service NewsQ and Q-feed, a social media platform tailored to sharing news, according to Cyworld.

NewsQ is a personalized news recommendation service that uses artificial intelligence recommendation engines to provide 10 news cards, five of which show news content relevant to a user’s personal preferences and interests.

The remaining five cards will display news touching on topics and issues determined most important by experts. The experts only designate broader topics to show, with related articles being randomly picked and shown to users, Cyworld said. 

With its new offering, Cyworld said it hopes to overcome the shortcomings of today’s news recommendation AI engines, which select and display only articles that a particular individual is inclined to be interested in.

Such systems have created what is called a “filter bubble,” in which a person is provided only news aligned to their interests, and alienated from various social issues, events and opinions that may not be to their taste, but are important.

Meanwhile, the new app’s Q-feed system is designed to become a social media platform dedicated exclusively to news content, in which individuals can build and share their own selection of news with one another.

Cyworld has designed the app to offer an alternative to those tired of traditional social networking platforms, such as Facebook, where fake news as well as dubious sources of information can freely proliferate.

The Que app is available both on Google Play and Samsung Galaxy Apps stores. It will also become available through Samsung Electronics’ AI assistant Bixby, available on the Galaxy S8 and superior models, by the end of this month.

Cyworld, often referred to locally as “Cy,” had been the most successful social networking service in Korea in the early 2000s, operated by SK Communications, a subsidiary of SK Telecom. 

Cyworld had connected people in cyberspace through personal sites called “minihompy,” which could be decorated through items bought with a virtual currency called “dotori.”

With successful dotori sales, Cyworld had been considered one of the earliest examples of monetization via the sale of virtual goods online.

However, the service began to lose appeal in the face of foreign social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In 2014, Cyworld was separated out of SK Communications, to operate as a company with its own employees as shareholders.

Then in July 2016, Cyworld was acquired by AireLive, a local video communications service company created by the founder of Korea’s first-generation internet portal website Freechal.

Last year, Cyworld drew spotlight for securing 5 billion won ($4.67 million) from Samsung Venture Investment Corp., a venture capital arm of the Samsung Group.

The tech giant had reportedly made the investment to obtain and use Cyworld’s content in improving Samsung Electronics’ AI-powered platforms, such as its voice assistant Bixby and smart speakers.

At the time, some market watchers had anticipated that Cyworld would work with Samsung to develop an AI-powered news curation service.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)