By Shelton Baumgartner
Ahssa! Editor
http://www.migukin.com
http://ahssa.blogspot.com
Looking through the International Herald Tribune yesterday, what did I
see but a story about Cyworld blogs! I felt so cutting edge and hip
'cause I wrote about them on my blog before the mainstream press got a
hold of the idea.
In Europe and the United States, the market for blogging software is
splintered, and no company has a dominant position. But in South Korea,
SK Communications' Cyworld unit has turned a kind of souped-up,
community-oriented blogging software into a runaway hit called Cyworld.
Eleven million South Koreans now have a Cyworld "mini-hompy," or mini
home page. That is nearly a quarter of the overall population and a
third of the country's online population. SK Communications says that
about 79 percent of Cyworld users are in their 20s or 30s. In November,
the Cyworld Web site attracted 16.8 million unique visits, according to
KoreanClick, a research concern, which also estimated that 90 percent
of South Koreans in their 20s were members of Cyworld.
Cyworld mini home pages are standardized with templates, the biggest of
which looks like an opened agenda.
Trust me, by the in of 2005 if you live in the United States you are
going to hear so much about "mini-hompy" blogs (or whatever they endup
being called in the U.S.) that you're going to want to throw up. The
thing that has prevented blogging going to the next level in the States
is that at this point you actually have some inkling of the concept of
media, the idea of "content" being something that people might want to
experience.
The "mini-hompy" puts that all aside and says -- do you have friends?
(I guess that leaves you out, huh. --Coy ). Your friends become
addicted to your site because they can know instantaneously what's
going on in your life.
Unlike many blogs, Cyworld mini home pages are filled largely with
images uploaded by users, and this seems to be the main attraction for
South Korea's digital-camera-toting young people. It is not uncommon to
see people taking pictures of food in a restaurant to post on their
home pages.
Owners of mini home pages can limit access to certain areas to their
Ilchons, or first-degree friends, but even so, friends of friends can
click on one another's names to expand their contacts and get to know
one another.
I went to a friend of mine's "mini-hompy" and I knew exactly what was
on her mind, what she was doing and where she was in her life in less
time that it usually takes me to turn the monitor of my P.C. on at the
P.C. Bang.
With the phenomenal success here, SK Communications is planning to
expand into other countries in Asia and into the United States in 2005.
You have been warned.
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