Kakao will launch a mobile business card service 'Talk Business Card' within this year. It is under the spotlight whether it will support the job search function beyond simple business card sharing. Many people are paying attention to see the competitiveness aspect with Naver's subsidiary, Remember, which provides similar services, with Talk Business Card.
Kakaodecided to launch a business card service and began its preparation work. An operation policy and privacy policy have already been prepared. They are expected to be applied as early as at the end of this month or within the fourth quarter at the latest.
The business card service is a function that allows users to collect and share profiles such as their occupation, career, and qualification information in the KakaoTalk wallet. Kakao plans to expand to expose basic information such as profile picture, name, and occupation in the business card, and even to display related social network services (SNS) or websites if users wish to share them.
KakaoTalk Wallet is a service that digitally stores and utilizes verifications and various certifications. Through KakaoTalk, Users can store 400 types of Kakao Certifications, which are private certificates, or nationally recognized certifications.Kakao Certification is the second-largest service in Korea with more than 20 million users as of the first half of this year.
It is predicted that there is a possibility of adding job search function, such as Remember or LinkedIn, as the business card contains user occupation, career, and qualification information,, and not just for digital business card function. Kakao is essentially entering the human resource (HR) platform market. According to SaraminHR, the size of the domestic online matching platform market this year is expected to reach about 400 billion won.
Naver's subsidiary, Remember, is also operating a 'Remember Career' service that allows users to create their profiles and career and receive a job offer. In December 2017, Naver and Line Plus acquired a 74.3% stake in Drama & Company, the operator of Remember, for 38 billion won. Afterwards, it was engulfed in rumors of a resale once this year, but Drama & Company came forward and refuted the rumors.Remember operates independently without interworking with Naver.
Blind, which operates a community of office workers, recently introduced 'Blind Hire', a platform for changing jobs.
With having 20 million KakaoTalk wallet users, the industry predicted that synergy effects will be created once the job search function is added. A Kakao spokesperson said, "It is difficult to disclose the detailed specifications of the business card and the official introduction date has not beendecided”
By Staff Reporter Si-so Kim (siso@etnews.com)