A new social media platform has been launched by the founders of Viki, a crowd sourced subtitling platform that aims to bring people with common interests together.
Vingle was born out of observations showing that Viki users were translating and subtitling dialogue from their favourite film and TV shows and seeking to create networks of like-minded individuals.
The Pinterest style service is available on iOS and Android the South Korea based service has since expanded to include all sorts of pastimes from fashion to sporting events such as the Tour de France, drawing in 2.3m visitors and 100m page views in June alone.
Commenting on the rise of Viki Mark Tetto, Vingle’s chief strategy officer, said: “If you look at the history of our founders and Viki, they were really fascinated even before Viki to find communities of subtitlers. The question raised was why are these people doing this subtitling and translation for free? They are driven by being in a community they love.
“The structure of the service (Vingle) is really different than other social networks because if someone likes a product, like Chanel, you can find what else they love, what they like to eat, or what kind of cars they like. So right now our content system has that potential,” says Sanghoon Kim, the site’s director of marketing and communications, adding that Vingle may eventually monetize by showing sponsored content relevant to each group.”
