There is very little doubt that iTunes is one of the biggest success stories in the world when it comes to people buying, reading, watching and listening to content. Because of this huge success, it appears that other companies in the industry are looking to get into the business. Kakao Talk is one such company. The company has long been one of the more popular mobile messengers in South Korea and it is now looking to get into an online music and e-book shop early in 2013.
This kind of move, beyond instant messaging, shows just how popular those kinds of apps have been in Asia. The new store, being called Kakao Page, will allow for more than just buying songs that have already been released in digital form. This shop will have tools that artists, writers and musicians can use to put together their products and sell them to Kakao Talk users. At last count, those users numbered somewhere in the neighborhood of 66 million.
iTunes appears to be the model that Kakao Talk is looking at, with recent announcements that the company will allow developers and musicians to charge whatever they want, but the company will be taking 20 percent from the sales. There will also be a 30-percent cut given to app store operators like Apple and Google (News - Alert), leaving about half of the revenue for the creators themselves.
Kakao Page is going to be rolled out slowly, being made available to South Korea users only when it is first launched. The company has been looking to expand outside Asian markets. Eventually, Kakao Talk would like to come hard to the American market by partnering with Google and Facebook (News - Alert). The founder and chairman of Kakao Talk, Brian Kim, wouldn’t be specific for how he would like to partner with the American Internet giants, simply that it “would be nice.”
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Edited by Rachel Ramsey