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Chat app maker Kakao is merging with Korea’s second largest portal company Daum

May26
by on May 26, 2014 at 2:31 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, kakao, kakao talk, Korea

kakao talk
Kakao, the Korea-based company behind the Kakao Talk mobile messaging app, is merging with Daum, the country’s second largest internet portal. The news is surprising, since Kakao had been tipped to go public before 2015 at a valuation of over $2 billion. The Yonhap News Agency reports that the merger – which is a stock swap arrangement — will create a company worth three trillion Korean won ($2.9 billion) but there is no confirmed price at this point. The new entity — ‘Daum Kakao’ — will become the second largest company listed on the KOSDAQ, according to the news agency. Daum announced the merger…

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The difference between traffic and audience

May25
by on May 25, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Entrepreneur

long road
Jeremy Bencken is the co-founder of Written.com, the audience development platform for content marketing. A small shoe store in Austin, Texas runs the most powerful publishing empire in the multi-billion dollar athletic shoe market. NiceKicks.com is read by 3.7 million unique visitors per month, according to its publisher, Matt Hafhill. Unlike a typical blog where readers view one or two stories before departing, visitors to NiceKicks.com view over eight pages per visit on average. And the site has a bigger social footprint than startup-famous tech companies like MapMyRun, Dell, and RetailMeNot. NiceKicks has traffic, certainly. But more importantly, it obtained…

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How to use Google+ communities to grow your business

May25
by on May 25, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, How-To's, Social Media

hands crowd
Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, a professional speaker and freelance writer. This post originally appeared on the iAquire blog. Google+ communities are groups on Google’s social network that focus on a specific set of subjects covering anything from baking to fashion to science fiction. A business, an individual or a group of individuals can run a Google+ community around any topic of their choosing to engage others interested in conversation on that subject. Members of a community can interact with the content shared by others in a community or choose to share their own content to start a new discussion. A community…

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7 things you should do before launching a beacon program

May25
by on May 25, 2014 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Design & Dev, Entrepreneur, How-To's

Using Android phone
Sam Gaddis is the Chief Innovation Officer at Mutual Mobile. The buzz around beacons is substantial. Up to now it has been predominantly contained to retail, with brands salivating over the prospect of being able to reach their customers long before they make their way to the sales counter, but a shift is occurring. In the past week I have counted no less than ten beacon-related launches, from museums to payment solutions and everything in between. But sticking a small transmitter under an end-cap display, or at your car wash, and waiting for the profits to roll in isn’t going…

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