Yellow pages? Local Story!

I found a website called Local Story which Korean people consider as an Internet version of yellow pages. It seems very similar to websites I have used in U.S. such as Seamlessweb.com and Citysearch.com in U.S. that provide local store/restaurant’s location, phone number, reviews and order service. Local Story is Location Based Service like those websites, but I found an outstanding service called Bizlog that makes Local Story very different from other LBS websites. Bizlog functions as a homepage of a local store that provides location (map), address, phone number, and pictures of a store like the other LBS websites provide, but the special features is that it provides an interactive place. Merchants and users can communicate in there, so they can share more information the homepage cannot provide. Moreover, Local Story provides SMS service. Users can order and make reservation by using this SMS service, and merchants can also use this service as real- time marketing activity. Merchants can also offer coupon and event and manage their customers by using this website. Although the Local Story partly charges fee to merchants when they use some services, I expect this website will be more advanced when mobile phone provides this service.

IPTV definately affects our lives!

I was so interested in IPTV service after I wrote about it, and I read another article about IPTV yesterday. The article said there is remote health care service called "TV doctor" through IPTV provided by LG Powercomm. It is really amazing that you can check your health and get advise from doctors via TV, so you don't really have to go to your doctors' offices. This service is available because of the IPTV which has not only TV function but also the Internet function. Korean people can see and talk to their doctor by using web cam and mic with TV, and I believe that it will bring more businesses in the Internet market. The Internet phone(+Internet video phone) business is precisely important to provide this health care service, so the Internet phone providers can increase their revenues by the service IPTV offers. The Internet businesses will extend their business area as long as IPTV provides more services, therefore, the IPTV service is certainly important for many Internet business companies to raise their profit. I am wondering what other services IPTV will offer in the future and what other iternet business will float in the market for the services.

What is IPTV??????

I frequently bring the time when I was in Korea in this year, and I remember one thing that so attracted me whenever I was at home. My family uses TV cable called "QOOK" by KT, and it has various functions like usual American cable companies serve such as recording certain program....etc. Anyway, there was interesting button on the remote controller my family uses. Oh.. MG. The remote controller was not only for shifting channels, it was also for searching the web thorough TV. It is possible if you have IPTV service, and you can search anything even while you are watching a TV program. KT has provided this service through "QOOK" since November,2008, and you can now only use one search portal,"NAVER" via IPTV service. Naver have certainly monopolized the IPTV market in Korea so far, but I guess there are several search portal will show up on TV because LG powercomm and SK broadband are serving IPTV now. I have to see what will happen in the future in IPTV and the Internet business areas.

Internet website for children

Last time, I was talking about Naver as No.1 search portal in Korea, and NHN corporation, which owns Naver, has developed another search portal for children called Junior Naver(and there is well-explanation of the website in NHN). As Internet is widely distributed, we cannot neglect children are users of the Internet. Therefore, targeting the children has great potential for the Internet business. The NHN now corporates with many education and children game companies such as EBS (education channel in Korea) and NEXON, since this website provides lots of contents for children's education and entertainment.
There are more web portal for children in Korea such as Daum Kidjjang, and Yahoo kids Korea, and there is English version of Yahoo kids( I think it is not like "search portal" for kids in Korea, but just entertainment website for kids.) Check them out and see what's different.

#1 Search engine in Korea

Naver has stayed in No.1 position for few years as a biggest search portal in Korea, and it is owned by NHN Corporation which also owns Me2day, Hangame and Junior Naver. As a research says on the NHN Cop. website, The naver's number of subscribers is 34 million, and number of daily unique visitors is 17 million(July,2009). It is such a huge number in a small country like South Korea.
Now, they are making billions dollar in a year, and I am just wondering that what makes naver so special? What is the fact that attracts people to Naver? Naver initiated Knowledge iN, Naver's Knowledge Search service on Oct. 2002, and I believe that this service have attracted so many users to this website. I believe that this is first knowledge search service on the internet ( Yahoo ask/answer was launched by Yahoo! on December 13, 2005 ). I think it is so unique and useful enough to attract people into this website. Many people are using this Knowledge search service right now, and the number of users will continue to increase as the service becomes improved. As I mentioned in the previous post, portals will change their forms of services, and this knowledge search service will become massive part in search engines, which allows users to communication as they search, ask and answer, in the future. What do you think of this service? Does it look so unique to attract people into this website? It may seems little useless for the other countries' people, but let's think about it. What if Google has the same service of Wikipedia? isn't it going to attract more people into Google?

I-phone! what you gonna do in Korea?

I was in Korea for four months in this year, and I felt like I came from stone age into the new world because so many things are so quickly changed in Korea. The most amazing change was the cell phone became more advanced that I am now able to see a person's face while I am talking to the person via cell phone. Korean people are very obsessive to have NEW phone, so it was a little wield that I-phone did not come to the Korea yet(there is a blog about iphone in korea). I read an article about I-phone in Korea, and it was interestingly related to the internet business in Korea;"The iPhone will create a breakthrough for Korea's wireless internet services". What is Iphone gonna do in Korea internet business?

First, I believe that it will boost the microblog such as Twitter or Me2day. Only some Korean people use the twitter or Me2day(Korean style of Twitter) now, but I-phone will bring huge amount of benefit in the microblog business area.

Also, I-phone will bring "real ubiquitous" computing- 24/7 online. the things that I was interested about I-phone has google map and weather. The functions you can download on App-store through free internet service in I-phone will attract more people and more internet business in Korea.

Moreover, the data convergence business will be broader through I-phone that will re-focus on the data sync service on the internet in Korea, and Korean search engines become more functionalized by it. The I-phone will bring so many potential Opportunities to the K-internet business, but I think it can be such a threat as well.