Cyworld may remember you better than you think

Cyworld's personalized avatar, known as “minime,″ welcomes people back, saying the users can find their old IDs and check past photos. [CYWORLD Z]

Cyworld, Korea's original super-popular social network, was resurrected Monday with some features offered to a select few.

The service switched on at 4:20 p.m. Monday in a beta version that allowed users to search for their old IDs. Cyworld Z — a consortium of five local entertainment companies that acquired Cyworld — decided the opening time would be 4:20 p.m. because “Cy” has a similar pronunciation to the Korean words for four and two.

People who found their IDs were able to check the number of photos and posts still linked to their accounts, but were not allowed to see all of them. Logging on to the website only showed one past photo, seemingly chosen at random.

High traffic on the Cyworld website was expected on the opening day, and checking past photos and posts was only possible for the 18 million users who had logged onto Cyworld at least once after Jan. 1, 2015. The other 14 million past users will be given access to the service later, but when was not announced.

Following the reopening, former Cyworld CEO Jun Je-wan announced in a statement that personal information had been transferred from Cyworld to Cyworld Z as of Monday in order for old photos and other content to be retrieved.

An official opening date for the resurrected version of the site, allowing full features such as uploading new photos and leaving posts, was also not announced.

People whose accounts still had dotori — Cyworld's currency — were allowed to refund it through Aug. 31. The old dotori can not be used in the future.

New dotori can be purchased in cash or by paycoin, a cryptocurrency operated by Danal Fintech.

Cyworld was originally supposed to be revived on July 5, but the reopening was delayed due to hacking attempts. During the one-month delay, the company reexamined and enhanced its security systems.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]