Naver Knowledge iN Turns 20, Half of New Users Are Aged 10-20

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Choi] On the 6th, Naver highlighted the major service history to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its knowledge-sharing platform, Knowledge iN.

Naver launched Knowledge iN on October 7, 2002, as a voluntary Q&A knowledge-sharing platform for users. Since then, over the past 20 years, a cumulative total of 32 million users have communicated through Knowledge iN. The number of questions and answers created by these users reached 300 million and 500 million respectively, accumulating a total database of 800 million entries.

Last year, the number of newly registered questioners was 1 million, and new answerers totaled 730,000. Especially during the pandemic period, the platform experienced a steeper growth curve, generating 30 million questions and 60 million answers annually. Currently, the average daily page views reach approximately 30 million.

Over the 20 years, the range of fields where users can share their concerns has also expanded. Users exchanged questions and answers across about 6,600 categories, from everyday minor worries to specialized information such as health and law.

Knowledge iN secures growth momentum based on continuously incoming new users. Notably, the influx of young users is increasing, with 56% of new users last year being aged 10 to 20.

This is analyzed as a result of providing usability that fits the younger generation accustomed to simple formats and fast communication. On average, new questions are registered every 2.1 seconds on Knowledge iN. The answer speed is even faster, with new answers posted every 1.2 seconds on average.

Another factor contributing to its popularity is its function as a kind of knowledge-based community where users communicate based on similar interests. Users can review existing questions and answers by topic, allowing them to refer to opinions from users with similar interests. In fact, teenage users showed high interest in topics such as 'Education/Academics' and 'College Admission/Career,' while users in their 20s mainly focused on concerns related to majors, part-time jobs, economy, and dating.

Naver continues to advance the Knowledge iN service. A representative example is the newly introduced ‘Question Bumping’ feature launched last month. This function minimizes unanswered questions by bumping them to the top of the list, exposing them again to new answerers.

Go Jun-won, leader of Naver Knowledge iN, said, “To further increase the reliability of answerers tailored to questioners, we are revamping the profile card, which is the Knowledge iN business card that indicates answerers’ expertise beyond just their rating. We also plan to introduce hashtags (#) to expand question categories and are preparing various measures for the next Nth anniversary growth momentum.”