Kakao Talk and Samsung’s ChatON: Korean Messenger Services Ready for Global Markets!

The Evolution of the Telephone and Communication

Paper cup telephones connected with a long string. Remember this phenomenon that still enchants both young and old with how you can actually use this as a telephone? The telephone and point-to-point communication has definitely come a long way since the grade school days of doing this activity in science class

Kakao Talk Messenger, the Next Global Social Hub

Nowadays point-to-point communication has made daily overseas and communication in general very cheap and accessible. After Skype, the Korean made Kakao Talk messenger has been the go to mobile app. Not necessarily for telephone conversation, but the sharing of pictures, videos and now voice notes have made Kakao Talk a sought after application for over 24 million worldwide users.

(Kakao Talk English Homepage)

We have introduced Kakao Talk Messenger a couple times before, but as they have recently hit their +24 million worldwide mark, Kakao Talk Founder and CEO, Jae Bum Lee, (known in-house as JB) has expressed his vision for “Kakao to become a global social hub.” Quite the statement but in an interview with Korea’s Money Today Newspaper JB states that he finds confidence in the exponentially increasing users in foreign markets, especially in Japan, America and China. Also to his surprise is the high number of new users in places like Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emriates and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East where Kakao has not done any targeted marketing.

(Kakao Talk CEO, Jae Bum Lee. Picture compliments of >> http://bit.ly/rhBVDR)

When asked “So what’s next for Kakao Talk?” Lee states that although Kakao Talk started off as a mobile messenger provider, they plan on partnering up with the right people and target the appropriate markets to take the Korean bred Kakao and place it on the international stage as a global service hub. Embracing all aspects of communication and social networking, Kakao Talk is expected to roll out with more language services and continue to strive to globalize their traffic and graphs.

ChatOn: “mobile communication reinvented and democratized”

On the heels of Kakao Talk’s success, it was only really a matter of time before a major key player dipped into these endeavors and Samsung Electronics announced on August 29th that they were going to release their own global mobile communication service, ChatOn, and after a full demo released at the IFA, many seem to think that this is going to give Kakao Talk a good run for their money.

(Samsung ChatOn)

The head of Media Solution Center for Samsung Electronics, Ho Soo Lee, was quoted stating that “with ChatON, Samsung has vastly simplified mobile communication by allowing users to connect to our upcoming feature phones and all major smartphones in the market. Users around the world can now enjoy easier and richer interactivity with whoever they want, in the format they want. This is mobile communication reinvented and democratized.” Regardless of device platform, this service will be able to service both feature and smartphone users. It will also have no limitations on communication between mobile phones, tablets and even PCs!

(Chatting on ChatOn)

(Sharing video and picture files on ChatOn)

Reinvented and democratized, texts, images, videos and even hand-written notes can be smoothly shared. And group chats are also a given. ChatOn will also be one of the most global mobile communication services, providing availability in over 120 countries and supporting up to 62 languages. Samsung really grasped the idea of targeting all global mobile and communication markets! The only other real successful social community to break not only borders but also a multiple user platforms has to be Facebook. So with that said, many are still on the fence about if ChatOn will ever take off, but I guess we will just have to wait and see, until Samsung opens the service sometime within this month.

Below you will find a video demo! Watch and enjoy!

***All ChatOn pictures and content are official press content released by Samsung