“A once-in-a-lifetime chance to erase your embarrassing past”: Cyworld to return by the end of next month

[Financial News] Cyworld has said it will return with a beta service by the end of this year at the latest. It plans to first offer features for recovering existing accounts and friend connections, with past photos and posts to be restored in stages as part of the full service.
On the 26th, Sigma Chain said it is preparing a beta service for Cyworld, targeting a launch in late November. Sigma Chain is a blockchain company led by CEO Kwak Jin-young, who worked on Cyworld during its early development. It previously announced in August that it had acquired assets related to Cyworld and planned to resume the service.
According to Sigma Chain, the beta service will focus on helping existing users recover their accounts and friend connections, as well as on basic communication features. In particular, it plans to offer account verification and linking through identity authentication for users who have difficulty finding their old accounts because their personal information has changed. It also plans to let users check their existing friend connections and make new ones.
Existing features such as mini-homepages, photo albums and friend connections will be redesigned for mobile. The service will also offer a feed for posts with attached photos and a comments feature. It will let users leave messages in friends’ spaces to stay in touch with longtime acquaintances or share memories.
Features for viewing past photos and posts will be introduced in stages as part of the full service. Items to be restored will also include guestbooks, comments on friends’ pages, friend nicknames and diaries. The plan is to connect accounts and relationships first in the beta service, then gradually bring back past records in the full service.
The full service will add a direct messaging (DM) feature for one-to-one and group messages. The company also plans to expand existing communication features such as the feed, friend connections and comments, and enhance miniroom customization. It also aims to establish a marketplace where creators can list and sell content they have made themselves and users can buy it, offer rewards for writing posts, commenting and interacting with friends, and expand Cyworld into a platform for content creation and monetization.
An “AI life mini-homepage” that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to organize past photos and posts is also part of the company’s medium- to long-term vision. The idea is to connect past and present records in a single timeline and display them grouped by themes, such as “My first trip abroad” and “Friends who have been with me for 20 years.” The company said, however, that it would need to separately verify whether the data exists, the restoration rate and usage rights before putting the idea into practice.
[email protected] Kim Hee-sun Reporter