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Daum Kakao Will Acquire the Path and Path Talk Apps
- minimaxir 11y agoPath also made the same post on their official blog: http://blog.path.com/post/120147299377/a-new-chapter-for-path http://blog.path.com/post/120147299377/a-new-chapter-for-pat...
- dudul 11y ago"Dave Morin is a cunt." http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/a-cunt-and-his-iphone http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/...
- dang 11y agoPersonal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.
- gargarplex 11y agoDan, though I will continue to abide by your rules, I respectfully disagree with your choice here. Dave Morin is a public figure; I think the linked article is closer to appropriate satire than personal attack. Clarifying question: It wouldn't be appropriate to call a mocking of an individual socially marginal person a satire; but is it correct to label a satire a personal attack?
- dang 11y agoPeople don't cease to be persons when they become public figures.
- idlewords 11y agoSeems like a plain statement of fact
- 1123581321 11y agoI think I know what was linked. Didn't you write it?
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- joelrunyon 11y agoAnyone know what Daum Kakao does?
- thewhizkid 11y agoThey make KakaoTalk. It's the largest messaging app in Korea.
- tosh 11y agoA South Korean internet company (think Google) http://www.daumkakao.com/en/main http://www.daumkakao.com/en/main http://www.daumkakao.com/en/about/service http://www.daumkakao.com/en/about/service http://www.kakao.com/services/8 http://www.kakao.com/services/8 (Messenger) http://www.kakao.com/services/49 http://www.kakao.com/services/49 (Uber) http://www.kakao.com/services/15 http://www.kakao.com/services/15 (Maps & Yelp) Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daum_Kakao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daum_Kakao
- 001spartan 11y agoI've heard of KakaoTalk before; it's one of the most popular messaging applications in South Korea. According to Wikipedia it's used by 93% of smartphone owners in South Korea [1]. Daum Kakao is the parent company, and looks to have their fingers in a lot of generic web services pies. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk
- sho_hn 11y agoIn turn, KakaoTalk is extremely similar to LINE, an application developed by the Japanese subsidiary of Daum's rival Naver. LINE seems to dominate the Japanese messenging market almost as strongly as KKT dominates South Korea (it's probably not possible to be functional socially without a KKT account there).
- ddoolin 11y agoWhich I always thought was strange, given LINE generally provided a better experience and Naver is stronger in South Korea than Daum, at least in the search provider/maps areas.
- thewhizkid 11y agoThe company has not been acquired, just the Path and Path Talk apps. I actually do not understand that part - what exactly does the company hope to do with Kong? How is the company supporting 40+ headcount now?
- nedwin 11y agoWell they just got a cash injection from selling Path & Path Talk so I can imagine that should help support 40+ headcount for a little while. Along with the $25m they raised a year ago.
- castell 11y ago11 months ago, Path bought the TalkTo app and rebranded it to Path Talk: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/20/path-talk-talkto/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/20/path-talk-talkto/ TalkTo/Path Talk used human operators instead of advanced AI. So scaling such an app might be expensive in the long run. TalkTo's revenues were based on a "Premium" model, where users paid a small fee per month Will the Path company pivot to another sector, as they sold both their main apps?
- fearless 11y agoPath's failure is a fitting reminder of the likely outcome of making your key metrics friendships and moments rather than revenue. No doubt this is just one of many overfunded social apps that will fall into the abyss this year.
- NhanH 11y agoThis is about as empty as criticism could get. If a company is solely focus on revenue then it's "short sighted and make bad product". Otherwise they're "over funded without business plan". You can't win anyway huh? I have no idea on why any of those social/ mobile apps is useful and I have never used Path either. But please keep the no substance criticism to a minimum please.
- tomasien 11y agoThe title needs to be changed to be more clear, Path and Path talk the apps were acquired, the company is going to produce other apps and support an app they already have in the market called "Kong".
- alaskamiller 11y agoSignals the official end of web 2.0 to me. A whimper instead of a bang. Path is so web 2.0 and the worst look to have this year is to be old when we're at the beginning of a third wave full of youngsters that wouldn't be caught dead trying to update their path timeline. Path Talk would have been an expensive land war that required a big sales army to win over one small shop at a time. So if Path is to Facebook then Kong is to Snapchat. If Marky Mark can't buy Snapchat then buying a second-run owned by a former insider ain't too bad either. That's the end game. Or, just rely on that Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley money to finally roll in.
- Handwash 11y agoFrom this acquisition, I just hope that Path won't turn into Kakao/LINE-like application, where they offer useless stickers, and try to look 'cute'.
- alariccole 11y agoI hope I don't ruin the joke by asking, is this a joke?
- balladeer 11y agoIt's good to know people still use Path. It sounded like a good app before mail/call spammed the shit out of almost everyone I knew.
- dba7dba 11y agoS Korea had some surprising early social network services before myspace ( est 2003) or facebook (2004). Cyworld (est 1999) was very popular social network service until it stagnated to the point where it now has about 40 or so employees only. Afaik, pretty much anyone with a computer in S Korea had an account at one point. Btw, I'm not suggesting myspace or facebook were copycats at all. I'm sure there's some other social network service that was launched before all of the above but just never got lucky enough to grow.
- ryandetzel 11y agoSo the board/investors approved this and since it does nothing for them Path, Inc. has to have a better plan going forward. Their investors have been on a roller coaster ride for a while. I wonder if they recouped what they paid for TalkTo in the deal?