In 2006, the South Korean web portal Daum (다음) introduced Tvpot (TV팟), their own video sharing platform, which was somewhat equivalent to YouTube, as the public was able to upload their own videos.
Tvpot gained some popularity over the years until another company got their hands on the portal. Once Kakao (카카오) bought Daum, they decided to combine Tvpot and their own video platform, Kakao TV. Unfortunately, Tvpot had to be sacrificed in favour of Kakao TV and the one of the actions the company took was to stop hosting public videos.
Ever since that day, Tvpot became more and more obsolete, as Kakao TV has now become the main attraction. Tvpot would keep sinking into obscurity until it got officially discontinued on November 7 of 2018. Today, almost no record of the website survives, beyond a few WaybackMachine snapshots it’s as if the website (or any of the uploaded videos) never even existed.
The tragedy of Daum Tvpot is a cautionary tale which reminds us that the internet is not forever. Platforms which provide users the ability to upload videos, photos etc. might one day suddenly cease to function. It is a user’s responsibility not to bet on a single platform, and an archivist’s responsibility to always keep an eye on such major platforms.
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