Korea.net, the official multilingual portal of the Korean government, on April 1 unveiled a makeover of its homepage.
By Park Gil-ja and Yoon Sojung
Korea.net, the official multilingual portal of the Korean government, on April 1 unveiled a revamped homepage featuring a more visually rich design, expanded content and a more convenient layout for readers.
The site's latest makeover is immediately evident from the homepage. Thanks to a simple but well-organized structure and a trendier design, the portal offers a more eye-catching yet clean impression.
Larger fonts and enlarged images are meant to boost readability. The new function of online polls also seeks to boost interaction with readers.
For a more convenient experience, users can find their desired content easier and faster with the homepage's new look.
The portal also has expanded content in the opinion section, which features insights from Korean and overseas experts on issues facing the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean relations. More than 300 Honorary Reporters from about 50 countries also share up-to-date information on Korea and related news from their homelands.
The origins of Korea.net stretch back to Korea Window, which the government launched in 1995. Four years later, the English-language website Korea.net began pilot service in September 1999. The homepage has since served as a leading government portal to spread to the world the latest information on Korea in a variety of sectors including government policy, summit diplomacy, international cooperation, sports, culture, arts and tourism.
The annual number of visitors to Korea.net rose from an estimated 18.25 million in 2013 to 22.78 million in 2018. The cumulative number of annual page views also jumped to 103.87 million in 2018 from 91.45 million views three years ago.
Kim Tae-hoon, director of Korea.net's parent organization Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), said, "Backed by the latest makeover, we will strive to offer advanced content with improved visual images like videos for our readers worldwide."
Korea.net will also concentrate on boosting its "hub function" by integrating the news service of the Korean government's policies.
Considering that the homepages of most government organizations do not provide sufficient news in real time, Korea.net will build an automated system to offer real-time transmission of its news articles.
In addition, the site will open a new YouTube channel for Hallyu, through which Korean pop culture experts run a real-time broadcast service in select languages to ensure more abundant and various content.
Korea.net on April 1 unveiled a major makeover of its official website.