Secret mobile place in 'Between'

Park Jae-uk, CEO of VCNC

By Bahk Eun-ji

Social networking services (SNS) are a double-edged sword. While Facebook now has around 800 million members and Twitter relays over 300 million tweets each day, a new form of anxiety has been created — people feel pressured to remain connected in order not to fall behind.

A Korean entrepreneur has come up with a service dubbed “Between,” which he says is designed to address one of the problems of social networking while still making use of its advantages.

It enables couples who want to connect do so without their virtual messages of love being observed by others.

“Although SNS is a huge trend in this digital era, it sometimes makes folk feel sick of relationships due to the deluge of information sent back and forth. Between is for people who want to enjoy privacy and intimacy,” said Park Jae-uk, CEO of Value Creators & Company (VCNC), the operator of Between.

Unlike other SNS platforms, Between provides a “secret place” for two people. Once couples have connected to each other by sharing their phone numbers, they can share pictures or sweet messages in a private virtual place that no one else can access.

Park said the majority of users so far are Koreans but the service has been well received in other Asian countries such as Japan, Malaysia, China and Singapore.

“Our target customers are Asians, widely known to be very reluctant to share their feelings and private memories with others,” the 27-year-old said. “The next target is Japanese couples and then we will move gradually to North Americans.”

Young challengers

VCNC was founded in 2011 by five young entrepreneurs from Seoul National University, including CEO Park, Chief Technology Officer Kim Young-mok and Chief Design Officer Cho Sung-wook.

The initial idea was incubated when they were students at Seoul National University and they said that their team spirit was one of the key assets for the firm’s successful launch.

Currently, Between has been downloaded 1.84 million times and has 700,000 active users. Up to 1.34 million messages are exchanged and 150,000 photos are posted on it every day. It is also provided in a total of 13 languages; English, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Arabic, Thai, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, German and Portuguese.

No shortcut to success

The CEO explains how the application will create revenue stream, namely, through mobile commerce.

“We will incorporate an anniversary reminder that recommends physical gifts as well as coupons.

The service will definitely be of interest to advertisers, because they will be able to clearly target consumers,” As almost every IT start-up does, Park also dreams of a high-profile initial public offering (IPO) in the future. But the priority is to make the company have sustainability so that it can overcome the many ups and downs of the industry.

For those who want to start their own businesses in the IT industry, Park advised taking certain necessary steps along the way.

“Some young and ambitious youngsters tend to believe that there is a shortcut to success, but business is never like that,” Park said. “Any newcomers should launch on the domestic market before turning their eyes to markets overseas.”

Mobile app: enhancer of relationships

Just like Kakao Talk, which has now become the most popular wireless instant message service both domestically and globally, Park hopes Between will become the most popular signature app for couples.

“The ultimate goal, or the vision of VCNC, is to help people have good offline relationships on the back of effective communication in this mobile world,” he said.

Two weeks with 'Between'

Bahk Eun-ji

Staff reporter

The most attractive function of this app is definitely its photo album, which like Facebook and other SNS can be classified according to date. Couples can write comments below each photo so that they can easily remember details of their time together.

For male users who often struggle to remember anniversaries with their partners, the Dday reminder feature is particularly useful. Park said his company has prepared a prompt notifications service for the reminder feature, which could earn revenues for the operator through targeted marketing.

With push alerts, recommendations for the gift list will be also available so that many male users can reduce their stress when picking out presents for their girl friends. Exchanging quick messages is also possible through a chat channel that has cute emoticons.

Its design and color are fairly cool. After several surveys and test versions, they selected a mint color inspired by Tiffany & Co.’s blue box, so as not to make male users feel too girlish.

Sure enough, the reporter’s boy friend would definitely not use it if it was pink or red, colors associated with love. He said that it would be too embarrassing to pop it up on the subway.

So that’s it. The app is simple rather than offering magical functions. However, it’s still worth having in terms of sharing memories that no one else can see.

As the developer says confidently, the app will provide more interesting and useful services including recommendations for nice restaurants and gifts not only for unmarried couples but also for married ones in the near future.

Topping things off, the app made me and my boyfriend feel united in a unique and secure way. So please go ahead and install it on your own phone if you want to enjoy a more intimate form of digital connection.