Ex-NHN CEO sets up a new shop - guess what business he'll be in
Web 2.0 | 2008/02/25 14:12 | Web 2.0 Asia
EDaily of Korea (note: link in Korean) announced that Mr. Brian Kim, the ex-CEO of NHN, has started a new company that seems to have its eyes on "the next generation of blog service".
NHN is the company behind Naver, Korea's #1 portal and the world's #5 search service (according to Newsweek). Brian was one of the two CEOs of NHN, and his departure isn't such a small deal for Korean web industry - Think Sergey Brin spinning out of Google for a new venture.
The new company, called IWILab, is apparently based in Mountain View and Bundang, Korea. According to EDaily, Brian thinks that blog service is one of the (rare) weak spots of Google, and therefore thinks he has a chance in the global market if he can build the next-gen blog service. For this, Brian is said to have cashed out some of his NHN stocks, worth about US$ 35 million - I'm not quite sure if a blog service startup would require that much of money, at least initially.
Brian's ShouldDo page says he should "forget about Naver and lead the internet world through Iwilab."
As a person who's already in the blog business, I welcome a new competition. Though it remains to be seen if Brian's new venture will make a huge splash in the blogging service market, I wish Brian the best with his new comany.
NHN is the company behind Naver, Korea's #1 portal and the world's #5 search service (according to Newsweek). Brian was one of the two CEOs of NHN, and his departure isn't such a small deal for Korean web industry - Think Sergey Brin spinning out of Google for a new venture.
Brian's ShouldDo page says he should "forget about Naver and lead the internet world through Iwilab."
As a person who's already in the blog business, I welcome a new competition. Though it remains to be seen if Brian's new venture will make a huge splash in the blogging service market, I wish Brian the best with his new comany.
