Korean Blogging Software Provider Acquired By Google

TNC (Tatter and Company) a blogging platform company based in Seol, South Korea, according to co-CEO Chang Kim - has been acquired by Google (GOOG).

The acquisition of TNC which offers a blogging platform similar as Automatic, is an indication that the search giant is taking the Asian markets seriously. Google, believe it or not, is not the market leader in Korea. The honor goes to search portal Naver which holds complete dominance of the Korean market. It accounts for over 70% of all search queries in Korea, thus leaving Google to play catchup. Korea is the world’s sixth largest market in terms of Internet users, making this acquisition for the Mountain View-Calif.based co. even more significant.

Chang Kim thinks that “the Korean web industry needs a player that can, as a balancing force, provide more options to the users and help create a more open web speculates”. Kim speculates that this is one of the first acquisitions of Google in this part of the world. He admits however, that not all acquisitions are disclosed by the search giant.

According to Venture Beat - TNC provides professional blogging software and services to more than 400,000 users, including 65 of Korea’s top 100 bloggers (as of the first half of 2007).

Google confirmed the deal Friday, saying it wants to “broaden its portfolio of locally-focused products, further encourage creation of openly accessible user-generated content, and improve search experiences of Korean users.”

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