I Didn't Back Up My Photos... 'Cyworld' Faces the Risk of Disappearing Forever

Restoration Was Announced for the Second Half of This Year, But the Project Has Been Halted
Funding Cut Off and Employee Wages Unpaid

Social networking service (SNS) Cyworld is on the verge of disappearing forever. Although a revival was announced for the second half of this year, it is currently facing difficulties.

According to industry sources on the 16th, Cyworld's support from Sonid, which acquired business rights, assets, and provided development funds, has been cut off. Cycomz has also failed to secure additional funding, causing the project to be halted. The servers are currently offline due to unpaid fees to the hosting company. Employees and outsourced workers have unpaid wages, and some employees have filed wage arrears complaints with the labor office.

Accordingly, the industry believes that launching a new Cyworld service within this year has become practically impossible. Data restoration work, including photos, must be started over from scratch. It is understood that employees are currently on unpaid leave.

At a press conference in December last year, Cycomz explained the data restoration schedule as "a project that takes more than seven months even if processing 1,000 items per second."

Founded in 1999, Cyworld gained popularity as the "national SNS" until the mid-to-late 2000s. After being acquired by SK Communications in 2003, the number of subscribers surpassed 30 million, and it enjoyed its heyday by earning over 100 billion won annually from the sale of its in-service currency, Dotori. However, it declined after the rapid expansion of the mobile ecosystem and competition from foreign SNS platforms, maintaining only a faint presence since then.

Original Cyworld logo [Image source provided by CyworldZ]

The CEO of Cycomz is Ham Young-cheol, who also leads the game service company TwoByte. The asset transfer was jointly conducted with Sonid, a KOSDAQ-listed company and a materials and components manufacturer.