Daum Kakao, the operator of the nation's top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, is adding information content to its database, reinforcing its competitive edge in the search engine business.
The company said Friday it has signed an agreement with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) to get the institute's professional science and technology information database for the Daum Encyclopedia service.
Daum Kakao said it expects to be able to provide users with more diverse and reliable information content through its Web and mobile search engine.
"Thanks to the provision of KISTI's highly-reliable scientific knowledge contents, we can now offer a higher level of information to our users," Daum Kakao's user-generated content division director Heo Ju-hwan said in a statement. "We pledge to continue our efforts to improve the quality of content we provide."
Under the agreement, KISTI will provide a variety of information on biological resources such as higher fungi, freshwater fish and annelids to Daum Kakao's encyclopedia service database. Science columns that professional scientists write on scientific phenomenon observed in daily lives with easier essay-style words will also be included, the company said.
Daum Kakao said it will start releasing the new content on Oct. 15 once it completes editing the information for the encyclopedia's format.
A spokeswoman said, "We have already signed an agreement with the National Library of Korea to get digitalized library information. There are more discussions under way to improve our search database."
Since the merger of Daum Communications and Kakao in October last year, the company has worked to connect Daum's search engine service to Kakao's mobile platform as part of an effort to create synergy between the two that are specialized in the web and mobile sectors, respectively.
On June 30, Daum Kakao added what it calls the "Sharp (#) Search" function to KakaoTalk. It allows KakaoTalk users to instantly search information and news by typing a sharp mark and their inquiry directly on a chat box without the need to run an extra application such as a mobile web browser.
The move is to open a niche market in the search engine sector which Naver, the nation's largest web portal, and Google have dominated.
Daum Kakao has said it will work to strengthen the search engine service by adding more content to its specialized knowledge database.
"Our Daum web portal will offer the science and technology information also through KakaoTalk's Sharp Search function, Channel service and Daum's mobile application," the company said.