KMixx
Crossing the Korea Digital Divide
My Personal Observations on iPhone Effect in Korea
Jun 4th
It’s been about six months since the Apple’s iPhone first went on sale in Korea and the iPhone has definitely impacted the Korean market greatly. On May 24, Korea Telecom (KT) announced over 700,000 iPhones had been sold, averaging 4,000 per day since its debut. Smartphones went from virtually non-existant to the new standard as the iPhone continues to build on its popularity and a number of Android phones enter the market. I wanted to detail my personal observations on how the iPhone has had an impact in Korea as several of my close friends are now avid iPhone users.
Wow Factor + Buzz Factor
The iPhone has a large wow factor in Korea. I was the first amongst my friends to purchase the iPhone but would constantly receive questions as to what I thought about the phone. Every few weeks, another one of my friends would show up with their newly purchased iPhone. Now, it seems the majority of people I know are iPhone users. The remaining few who don’t have iPhones are mostly trying to finish the remaining portion of their 2 year contracts but ask about the iPhone regularly. As an Apple fanboy, it’s a given that I would recommend More >
Wonder Girls do the iPhone!
May 16th
Tapulous, one of the leading iPhone app game developers and creators of the most downloaded game, Tap Tap Revenge, has released two singles on the iPhone app store yesterday including NOBODY and 2 DIFFERENT TEARS. You can download them on the Tap Tracks store via Tap Tap Revenge 3 application. This is a first for any Korean artist in the US music app market.
The Wonder Girls are the first Korean group ever to appear on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, WONDER GIRLS formed and debuted in 2007 as part of singer/producer J.Y Park’s JYP Entertainment. They also opened up for the Jonas Brothers on their 2009 tour.
We will be following up with a more in-depth game review as there will likely be more games coming soon.
T-Commerce – eBay Korea Launches New Shopping Service
Apr 21st
Auction, Korea’s second largest online shopping site owned by eBay Korea has launched a new online commercial service dubbed ‘Shopperama’, a term coined by combining ‘shopper’ and ‘drama’.
Shopperama is a pilot trial of T-commerce, shopping service implemented on internet TV channels. During or after watching shows on internet TV, consumers can purchase clothes, shoes, belts and any other accessories shown in the show. Clicking on actors or actresses starring in the show allows watchers of the show to view information of products featured in the show. Purchasing is as simple as clicking a few times.
Until now, Auction provided only one soap opera titled “Hungry Romeo & Luxurious Juliet” consisting of 60 short episodes; however, more diverse content is being prepared for wider audience for both the show as well as T-commerce service. Shopperama is prepared with the potential to be a killer service for IPTV and cable TV service providers.
Director of Auction Boo-Seung Chung stated, “even though there are only 2 million potential users of T-commerce service in Korea, I believe the service will be one of the most widespread service in near future.”
An Apple Halo Effect in Korea?
Apr 17th
I’ve been an avid Mac user for over 15 years. Back then, when people referred to Apple, they referred to it as the “beleaguered” computer company. Now, Macs are quite popular and much of it has to do with the halo effect around the iPod and iPhone.
A retailer named Lots got me thinking about what sort of halo effect could occur due to popularity of the iPhone and iPod in Korea. Lots sells notebooks and various accessories such as headphones and iPod/iPhone cases. They imported a number of iPads for display (the iPad isn’t for sale in Korea yet) in their store to increase foot traffic and it’s certainly working. During a 10 minute visit, the vast majority of customers in the store came to check out the iPad.
So what chance do Macs stand in Korea?
There are several reasons why Macs face an uphill battle in Korea but the largest has been covered previously on KMixx. Many sites in Korea use ActiveX. Want to buy something online? You’re going to need ActiveX to access the payment gateway. Need online banking? You’ll need ActiveX. Want to fully utilize Cyworld, the largest social network in Korea? You need ActiveX. Accessing these sites More >
Great Talent + 4 iPhones = a “World Star”
Apr 15th
In mid-March, a YouTube video made a big buzz among the Korean Twitter users. It was a video of a girl singing and playing Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” with various musical apps in 3 iPhones. She had been known as “iPhone-nyuh”(“nyuh” means “girl” in Korean) at that time, And the link of the video spread really fast via Twitter and NateOn. People were amazed by her savvy usage of the iPhones, her great vocal performance, and her attractive appearance. Her Twitter account is @0applegirl0, and her name is Yeo-hui Kim.
The famous Korean Twitter user Yongman Park(@Solarplant), who is the chairman of Doosan Infracore, Retweeted her tweet and encouraged her to post another video of her singing. That tweet ignited the spread even more. She did post another video, this time she sang Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” (with “4″ iPhones!!!) and it’s viewed by over 1,690,000 people on YouTube so far.
On early April, she was introduced on Mashable, one of the most famous tech new site in the world. Now she has worldwide fame.
In early days, YouTube gave chances to ordinary people, who has great talent but didn’t have opportunities to show it, to express themselves easily. Now with Twitter and other social media, the power of YouTube has been More >
Korean Facebook User Demographic Pattern Compared to Other Countries
Apr 14th
As Twitter and several similar microblogging services are on the rise, Facebook too is seeing a major increase in local Korean membership.
While Facebook’s penetration of online users of Korea is amongst the world’s lowest at 1.27% with approximately 620,000 users, the user base is growing at a rapid 16%, which is ranked 6th in the world.
While user base demographic data for western countries such as the USA and Great Britain are similar in nature (see below), it is obvious that Korean user demographic is substantially different; for both USA and GB, approximately half the user base was formed by those in age group 18 to 34 (49% and 53% respectively) – the same age group in Korea, however, was responsible for about three quarters of the user base (73%). Another example of Korean demographic skew is observed in older age groups; in USA and GB, users of age 45 and above were responsible for 22% and 16% of user base respectively while the same group in Korea only composed 6% of total user base.
This brings to one conclusion of Facebook user base in Korea. This raises another question: is this just the case for Korea, or is this generally the More >
Google to Shut Down Android Game Category in Korea
Apr 5th
“Strike Two!” for the state-run, Korea Games Rating Board.
Google Korea finally made an announcement that it will officially shut down the Game category of the Android app store in Korea “to abide by local law”, which requires all video, computer/mobile and web-based games sold in S.Korea to be reviewed and rated by the government-operated, Games Rating Board (GRB).
This (theoretically) cuts off South Koreans with Android phones from the some 4,400ish games (up to now) in the Android app store. You’d think this is a huge issue if it wasn’t for the fact that “Strike One” was when Apple went through a similar situation and shut down its Game category in the Apple App store. This, of course, just resulted in Korean games developers flooding the Entertainment category with…um…. games. *sigh*
I’ll try to delve into this fully in a follow-up post, but at least for now I wanted to give the quick skinny first, as I see it (you’ve been warned):
The big bad Korea Games Ratings Board says, “No Android Games for you!“ (Yes, I love the Seinfeld “SoupNazi” reference… and tooo easy, I know, but not my fault it keeps coming up! =P)Google says, “..er… OK. Aww yahh!! MORE FREE PR! I thought we maxed More >
Korean Blog Business Association – Proof that Koreans Take Blogging Seriously
Apr 2nd
About the KBBA
The KBBA (Korea Blog Business Association; KBBA) was established for consolidation of members of Korean blogosphere. As an affiliate of the MCST (Ministry of Culture, Sport & Tourism Republic of Korea), KBBA was founded on a consortium of 12 Korean blog companies; and the first elected chairman is from Tatter & Company Inc., the company that developed Tattertools, the predecessor of Textcube (acquired by Google), which is a blogging software platform widely used in Korea.
Membership admission of KBBA is regulated by member companies – annual fee and consensus from all members is required for a new member to join. Recent new members include Miclub (community portal site for women) and Tongyang Online (company behind Game Hama, a popular gaming portal) and Senior Partners (portal site for senior citizens). Currently, KBBA is 20 members strong and in their monthly meetings, topics including contemporary business trends and potential opportunities are discussed.
Role of the KBBA
KBBA’s primary activity involves supporting blog-related events in Korea. There are estimated 20 million blogs in Korea. Most blogs are built on existing blog platforms including Naver, Tistory, Daum, Egloos, and Textcube. Most bloggers often ‘scrap’ useful content from another blog or website into their own blogs More >
A Simple Wrap-up of Twestival Seoul 2010
Mar 31st
Twestival is basically a Twitter Festival (Twitter + Festival). But attendees don’t just gather around and drink beer, They fund-raise for charities. Twestival started in London, UK, in 2008. Check out their official web site for further information.
On the 25th of March 2010, hundreds of cities all around the world coordinated to hold a local Twestival 2010 event on the same day. This time Seoul joined ranks and held its own Twestival for the first time. So, this time I also attended, donated, and enjoyed the event with the rest of my fellow tweeples in Seoul.
The Twestival was held at the Gom TV Studio, at Shinjeong-dong, Seoul. The place was not in the central area of Seoul, and kind of hard to find. But Gom TV, one of the best and most popular internet streaming video companies in Korea, volunteered to hold the festival at their location as well as film the show and stream it on the internet. So I guess that’s why they set the event in a remote location.
I got there a little late, around 8:30pm (the event started at 7:30pm), and the show was already going on. However, there were not as many people as I imagined. I think it’s because More >
me2DAY vs. Twitter Part I: Developer Ecosystem
Mar 26th
There has been a lot of coverage about me2DAY and Twitter on KMixx these days and it certainly makes sense as microblogging is a huge current trend. I’ve been an active user of both services for over a year and have noticed stark differences between the two. There is a lot to go over so coverage will be divided into a three part series. The first part will cover the developer ecosystem around both services while future parts will cover differences in the user bases as well as take a look at the future of microblogging service in Korea.
Twitter Developer Ecosystem
Both me2DAY and Twitter offer open API’s for third party developers. Twitter’s may be well known as a number of popular services have been created around Twitter and many sites now display Twitter logins. A couple of popular “pick and shovel” Twitter services include Twitpic, WeFollow and TwitVid. Disqus takes advantage of Twitter’s login service to improve blog comments. Users with smartphones utilize applications such as Tweetie or echofon to access Twitter on the go while desktop applications such as Seesmic are highly popular. In addition to these, there have been many local services created specifically for the Korean market. Here is a look at a More >
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