Sirgoo Lee, spotted in Shanghai with a lesson to share: “Continued search for new value, the key to new innovations- and to profit.”
Kakao has always been about new value creation. Our continued efforts to uncover new ways of communicating, playing games, sending gifts, and sharing music, were all made in search for new values-both to our users and to thousands of our partners in varying industries. Sirgoo addressed these values through the keynote address and through the follow up panel discussion at the Mobile Asia Expo 2014. Here are some key takeaways from the MAE:
“Kakao: a smart connector”
What Kakao does best is connect people. From the very beginning, Kakao was about connecting people, and about finding new ways to connect them. Instead of asking, “What should we sell?” or “How can we make money?” we asked, “Who do we connect” and “How do we connect them?”
It is by continuously asking ourselves how we can give our valuable network of users even more of what they want, and make their connections even stronger, we evolved into a platform that offers an array of rich services.
“KakaoTalk, the first messenger to evolve into a multi-platform service”
Today, Kakao evolved into a multi platform that offers more than just messaging between friends.
- Emoticons were introduced to help smooth out communication barriers and make chatting more fun and entertaining.
- PlusFriend, a new mobile marketing channel was developed to allow users to follow their favorite celebrities and brands.
- Gifting, a mobile commerce platform, was developed to allow users to easily send and receive gifts through a channel they access every day.
- KakaoGame, a game platform was introduced to allow users to play games with and against their actual friends and family.
- KakaoMusic, a music platform, is now the fastest and most convenient way of sharing not just music - but their thoughts, memories and opinions on music with friends.
Kakao continues to introduce new platforms where users can share different content. We believe that creates a rich mobile experience. And through these platforms, we create new opportunities for tens of thousands of new partners in various industries.
“If you think about money, you can’t build a great service”
“Its better to just focus on building a great service” Sirgoo explained during the follow-up panel discussion. A great service, being a value creating, quality service that can attract strong traffic. Once you have that in place, ways for monetization will come naturally from users and from partners.
For more details on Sirgoo’s speech, refer to the official press release here or view via video at Mobile World Live.