Soompi

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Website on Korean pop culture

title: "Soompi" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-music-websites", "internet-properties-established-in-1998", "k-pop-websites", "rakuten"] description: "Website on Korean pop culture" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soompi" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Website on Korean pop culture ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
logo	Modern Soompi Logo.svg
logo_size	191
name	Soompi
launch_date
url
language	English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai
owner	Rakuten Inc.
(Viki)
headquarters	San Francisco, United States (Global)
Seoul, South Korea (Korean offices)
registration	Optional
current_status	Active
::

Soompi is an English-language website providing coverage of Korean pop culture. It has one of the largest international Internet communities for K-pop, mostly concentrated in news and forums. With more than 23 million fans across all platforms, Soompi offers English and Spanish services.

Since its establishment in 1998, Soompi has grown into one of the longest-running, and most frequently visited websites providing coverage of Korean music, celebrity news and entertainment.

Initially its visitors were mostly Koreans residing in foreign nations, with over 1.2 million people visiting the site. However, as of 2012, the majority of its members are non-Koreans in the United States, Canada, Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia, among others.

History

Soompi was founded in 1998 by Korean American web developer Susan Kang, In February 2011, it was acquired by Enswers, Inc., a Seoul-based IT venture company specializing in video search technology, and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of it. When Enswers was acquired by another company, Soompi found a new home with Crunchyroll, a U.S.-based VOD site that specializes in anime, in 2013. Viki acquired Soompi on August 19, 2015.

Soompi Awards

Soompi is also known for its annual Soompi Awards, which began in 2005, and recognise K-pop and Korean drama acts. Winners are selected partially based on fan voting and partially based on Soompi's music charts.

References

"Soompi.com shows Hallyu where to go". [[The Korea Herald]].
"Have You Heard Of Soompi? It's The Largest English Community For The Korean Wave". Advanced Technology Korea.
Dae-yong, Kim. (24 September 2012). "KT - New Strategies for Media & Contents industry". [[Korea IT Times]].
Bue, Jonathan. "K-Pop's Connection to CSUN". Daily Sundial.
"Can Girls Generation break through in America?". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
"Ways to keep the Wave rolling around the world". [[Korea JoongAng Daily]].
"Gangname-style viral popularity in US has koreans puzzled gratified". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
"Web triggers global renaissance of Korean Wave". [[Korea JoongAng Daily]].
"Soompi – A Site Where Netizens Revel in Korean Culture". Koreabrand.net.
"Music Of The Seoul". The Daily.
"Founder of largest English K-pop site Soompi". Korea Times.
"Enswers Acquires Soompi Korean Entertainment community". allthingsd.com.
"Enswers' history". enswersinc.com.
"SOOMPI.COM - the Korean Pop Culture Site". [[HanCinema]].
"Translation services make World Wide Web more worldwide". [[Yonhap News Agency]].
(19 August 2015). "Viki Buys Korean Fan Community Soompi from Peter Chernin's Crunchyroll". [[Variety (magazine).
Herman, Tamar. (16 April 2018). "Interactive Soompi Awards Show Immense Growth In K-Pop-Oriented Twitter Activity". [[Forbes]].
Herman, Tamar. (April 16, 2018). "BTS, GOT7 & Other K-Pop Acts Win Big at Soompi Awards".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::