Vingle (social network)
File:Vingle logo.jpg | |
Type of site | Social networking service |
---|---|
Founded | October 21, 2011 |
Founder(s) |
|
Key people | Jiwon Moon (CEO) Changseong Ho (President and COO) Mark Tetto (CFO) Hunter Moon (Marketing Manager) |
Industry | Internet |
Employees | 10+ |
URL | www |
Registration | Required |
Current status | Active |
Vingle is a social networking website.[1]
Founding
The company was launched on October 21, 2011, by Changseong Ho and Jiwon Moon, creators of Viki,[1][2][3] which they sold for $200 million.[4] In 2012 Vingle received Series A funding from K Cube Ventures.[5][6] The co-founders had also invested $1 million in the company, and in its first four months, Vingle had about 600,000 unique monthly visitors.[7] On Viki users would translate and subtitle television shows or movies, so Ho and Moon started Vingle to grow the number of interest groups and crowdsourcing projects that users could pursue on the site. [8]
Overview
The social network was initially based on a South Korean website, but in 2014 moved to an iOS and Android app. That year the network had 2.3 million users and 100 million monthly page views across about three thousand interest focused communities.[8] The app received 1.4 million downloads in its first year,[5] and Vingle next began to expand into Japan and the United States.[9] By late 2014, Vingle had four million monthly visitors from 105 countries, with content in twenty-six different languages.[10][11] As of 2015, the company was valued at $1 billion.[12]
Use
Vingle requires users to sign up to access its communities, either through a user account or via another social media account. Once on the site, users record their personal interests and begin to use the site’s collection tool to follow other users interested in the same topics. Users can publish their own posts called “cards”, which can contain video, images, and text.[13]
References
- ^ a b "Vingle: A Social Networking Site Where You Meet People With Similar Interests to Yours". TechFrag. July 25, 2014. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
- ^ Tomczyk, Marta (November 15, 2014). "Korean Startups Are Hot This Year. Here is a Look at The Top Accelerators Powering Their Success". beSUCCESS. Archived from the original on December 15, 2014. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
- ^ Lee, Emma (August 22, 2014). "Running Interest-based Startup from Korea with a Global Vision: Viki and Vingle Cofounder Changseong Ho". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
- ^ John Yoon (29 October 2015). "How Big Can Korean Startup Vingle Get?".
- ^ a b "Running Interest-based Startup from Korea with a Global Vision: Viki and Vingle Cofounder Changseong Ho". TechNode. 22 August 2014.
- ^ Tudor, Daniel (9 September 2014). A Geek in Korea. ISBN 9781462914074.
- ^ 10 Media. "Tech & Gear: Startup of the Month Vingle.net". 10 Magazine Korea.
- ^ a b "Vingle Lets You Mingle With People Who Share Your Interests". TechCrunch. AOL. 23 July 2014.
- ^ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem".
- ^ Jonathan Cheng (21 October 2014). "New Wave of Startups in Korea Flourishes". WSJ.
- ^ "Lost in Translation: Cultural Differences in Linguistic Aspect". Asia Society.
- ^ "Startups cater to your personal needs". 11 February 2015.
- ^ DashBurst (9 April 2014). "Birds of a Feather Flock Together on Vingle, New Social Network Site". Small Business Trends.