Naver

Naver (stylized as NAVER) is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. Launched in 1999, it was the first web portal in South Korea to develop and use its own search engine. It was also the world's first operator to introduce the comprehensive search feature, which compiles search results from various categories and presents them on a single page. Since then, Naver has added a multitude of new services, ranging from basic features such as email and news to the world's first online Q&A platform, Knowledge iN.

As of September 2017, the search engine handled 74.7% of all web searches in South Korea and had 42 million registered users. More than 25 million Koreans have Naver as the start page on their default browser, and the mobile application has 28 million daily visitors. Naver has also been referred to as 'the Google of South Korea'.

History
Naver was founded in June 1999 as the first South Korean portal website with a self-developed search engine. 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. The company's name is a play on "navigate" and the suffix "-er," meant to describe one who helps others navigate.

In the early days of Naver's operation, there was a relative dearth of web pages available in the Korean language. To fill this void, Naver became an early pioneer in user-generated content through the creation of the 'Knowledge iN' (Hangul: 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.

Over the years, Naver has continued to expand its services. It launched its web comic service, 'Webtoon', in 2004 and its personal blog service in 2005. From 2005 to 2007, Naver expanded its multimedia search services, including music and video search, as well as mobile search.

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.

Naver introduced new restrictions on comments to protect celebrities from malicious comments by anonymous online audiences in March 2020. This followed a 2019 incident where the famous singer-actress Sulli committed suicide due to depression after facing a large amount of malicious comments. Naver also replaced the comment box with facial emojis following criticisms regarding the mental health implications for celebrities.

Naver now owns Wattpad, an online book service.

In October 2020, Naver was fined 26.7 billion won ($22.9 million) by South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for manipulating its algorithm between 2012 and 2015 in favor of its services such as Smart Store and Naver TV over services provided by rivals. Naver's share in the open market sector increased from 4.97% in 2015 to 21.08% in 2018, while competitors' market shares declined.

Owing to its rising popularity in Japan, Naver is currently competing with Kakao to claim the number one position in the Japanese market for web novels and webcomics.

Junior Naver
Junior Naver (Hangul: 쥬니어 네이버), also known as Juniver (Hangul: 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.

Naver Webtoon
Naver Webtoon (Hangul: 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. Several k-dramas have been adapted from these webtoons.

Naver Cafe
Naver Cafe (Hangul: 네이버 카페) is a service that allows Naver users to create their own internet communities. As of May 2017, 10.5 million cafes were active. Each person can create up to 300 cafes.

Naver Blog
Naver Blog (Hangul: 네이버 블로그) started with the name 'paper' in June 2003 and evolved to 'blog' 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 (Korean: #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
Naver Pay (네이버페이) is a payment service by Naver Financial, a subsidiary company of Naver, launched on June 25, 2021. It initially started as a payment service for Naver Shopping but now offers payments in over 97,000 stores both online and offline. On December 20, it began supporting Zero Pay in-app, a government-funded payment service. In May 2019, Naver started supporting overseas payments in Japan via Line Pay, allowing users to make payments in stores in Japan without exchanging currencies. The service ended on August 31, 2023.

Knowledge iN
Knowledge iN (Hangul: 지식iN), formerly Knowledge Search (Korean: 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. Knowledge iN was an early example of harnessing user-generated content to expand the amount of information available on the web, particularly in the Korean language. Bradley Horowitz, former Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo!, has cited Knowledge iN as the inspiration for Yahoo! Answers, 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 only be minimally 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.

Naver Encyclopedia
Naver Encyclopedia (Hangul: 네이버 사전) consists of a professional database with over 3 million entries sourced from various encyclopedias. It involves more than 1,000 experts across fields like physics, food, and film, producing 45 types of specialized content. The Naver Knowledge Encyclopedia has accumulated 50,000 headwords and deals with over 100 public institutions, incorporating over 900 databases.

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

Naver Shopping Live
Naver Shopping Live (Hangul: 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.

PRISM Live Studio
PRISM Live Studio (Hangul: 프리즘 라이브 스튜디오) is a live streaming application available for both mobile and PC users. Streamers can simultaneously broadcast to multiple platforms, a practice known as simulcasting, 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.

Search engine features and restrictions
Naver's closed platform is often highlighted. Other search engines are not permitted to index their knowledge base and blogs, allowing Naver to maintain monopolistic control over its properties. In April 2011, the second and third largest portal sites in Korea, Daum and Nate, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to open their search for services like cafes and blogs. However, Naver chose not to participate in this MoU.

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

Person-related Search Terms (Korean: 인물 연관 검색어) on Naver had been criticized for including defamatory searches. As a response, Naver abolished Person-related Search Terms in March 2021.

In October 2023, Naver announced the beta release of its AI chatbot service, 'CLOVA X' (Korean: 클로바X).