Nate is a South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

n web portal

Web portal

A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

, developed by SK Communications

SK Communications

SK Communications is a provider of internet service and web portal Nate in South Korea.In 2003, Nate merged with Cyworld, one of the leading social networking services in South Korea....

. In 2003, Nate acquired the online community service Cyworld

Cyworld

Cyworld is a South Korean social network service operated by SK Communications , a subsidiary of SK Telecom .Members cultivate relationships by forming Ilchon or "friendships" with each other through their minihompy....

, and in 2004, it achieved first place in local page views with a total of 3.8 million, surpassing rival Daum for the first time.
NateOn is an instant messaging client provided by Nate, which in 2005 first overtook MSN Messenger in terms of South Korean user numbers. During the third week of May 2005, NateOn's South Korean users totalled 7.54 million, compared to 6.5 million for MSN Messenger.