Naver launched its user Q&A service Knowledge iN in 2002.
Knowledge iN, also written as Knowledge iN or 지식iN, lets users post questions and receive answers from other users. Naver used the service to turn search into a community activity: people contributed practical explanations, shared local knowledge, and awarded points to especially helpful respondents.
The platform was an important part of Naver’s strategy in South Korea, where user-generated content helped distinguish the portal from general-purpose search engines. It is often described as one of the early large-scale question-and-answer services on the web. Yahoo! Answers, launched in 2005, followed three years later; Yahoo executive Bradley Horowitz later cited Naver’s service as an inspiration.
Do not confuse the 2002 Knowledge iN launch with Naver’s own founding in 1999 or its comprehensive search service, introduced in 2000. Knowledge iN began as Knowledge Search and later became a major repository of community-submitted questions and answers. By 2016, reports cited roughly 100 million questions and 200 million answers.