Local Search Engines File Complaint Against Google

The Korea Times carried an article with additional detail on the complaint filed against Google by local Korean search engines.  I recommend it for those of you interested in more in-depth analysis of this issue.

Content, Search and Advertising: Developments in the South Korean Market

As readers of this blog know, I believe that search, or easy and broad access to information is the so-called "killer app" that people want when they log on to their computers or mobile devices.   This is hardly surprising as human beings are essentially communicative animals, whatever their culture or language.  For years now Naver, although it only searches within the Korean-language "intranet" and ignores the wider, diverse world of the English and other-language internet, has been dominant in South Korean search.  This made Korea one of only four countries in the world that bucked the Google trend, the others being Russia, China and the Czech Republic.
This week, two news items relating to the role of language and culture in search caught my attention.   The first was the news, as reported in the Chosun Ilbo, that Daum and Nate have formed a partnership to take on Naver.  Naver's strength in search is a main reason it is currently the dominant web portal and online advertising service in South Korea.  The new partnership calls for cooperation in online advertising and content. SK Communications boasts some 33 million users on its Nate messenger service and operates the popular social networking service Cyworld, while Daum features e-mail services, forums and news. The two sides are hoping to create synergy through the cooperation.  The partnership will be the first sharing of content by major portals in Korea.
The second news item was the announcement, reported in the Joongang Daily, that Naver and Daum have asked the Fair Trade Commission to investigate Google for allegedly stifling competition in the availability of search engines available on smart phones. NHN and Daum argue that Google, the developer of the Android operating system, pressed local smartphone makers to preload only its mobile search programs in an effort to increase its market share in Korea, which has long been dominated by local search engines that had 90 percent of the local market last year.  
Things are getting interesting in the Korean market.   Obviously content, search and advertising are all closely inter-related in the emerging world of broadband internet as we move toward a ubiquitous network society.  However, local press coverage here fails to frame the issue in terms of Korea's heavy dependence upon Korean-language only content, a dependence that has started to break down, especially among younger generations, since the arrival of Apple's iPhone way back in December of 2009.

The Latest on "Smartphone Shock" in South Korea

As readers of this blog already know, I've been fascinated by the shock created when the Apple iPhone finally reached the South Korean market, after more than two years of delay. (for example, see this earlier post)  Now a Google study has released some fascinating data about the rapid spread of mobile broadband usage here in South Korea.  As reported in The Wall Street Journal  smart phone usage has grown so much that Google is now tracking more than 100 million "ad requests" a day in South Korea.
In the study, Google found that nearly 60% of people using mobile devices accessed the internet on their handset at least five times a day. And 35% said they spend more time online via a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet PC than they do watching TV. That seems startlingly high, but TV watching is reduced for many South Koreans by long working hours, after-work outings and lengthy commutes.

Digital Development in Korea Now Available in E-book Formats

Digital Development in Korea:  Building an Information Society, is now available via Amazon.com in a format for Kindle and other e-readers.  It looks quite nice on the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab device I've been using.  And, of course, the electronic version has the advantages of being hyperlinked and searchable.  

Mobile Phone Use in North Korea Increasing and Diversifying

Media reports, including one in The Joongang Daily, indicate that mobile phone usage in North Korea is up 50 percent, year on year.   The development and use of mobile telephony is a topic that I've followed somewhat closely in this blog (see earlier posts).  There are many interesting aspects to the development.  Use of Chinese mobile services along North Korea's border with China highlights the dilemma that the North faces in trying to keep information from its people.  Continued restrictions on the use of mobile phones and other digital devices has the effect of restricting economic growth and development, while expansion of services multiplies the ways North Korean citizens can receive and share information about the outside world.  Gigaom has an interesting article, based on some recent research, about how Twitter could help unleash world peace.
According to figures released by South Korean officials, the number of mobile phone users in North Korea has increased to 450,000 and South Korea's Vice Unification Minister believes, probably correctly, that this indicates not only growth in numbers but also a diversification of users, after the early usage was largely limited to elites.  This diversification, in turn, could signal the growth of a tech-savvy generation in North Korea.  If that happens, one can only speculate about the future role of digital media in political change within North Korea.  The matter becomes especially interesting with the current rapid decrease in cost, accompanied by increase in computing and communication power of a growing array of smart phones!

The Shape of Education for the 21st Century

So far, I'm truly enjoying my new job with the Lyntz Knowledge Group in Seoul.  Working with a larger network of Korean and American colleagues, I'm helping to shape a new business approach to international education.   Our new business model is responsive to two major developments that are transforming education in the early years of this century.
The first of these developments is the information revolution, which features continued convergence of digital media, the rapid global spread of mobile broadband, greater use of video and, of course, social networking.  The IT revolution is changing the character and quality of education, both on-campus and off, while literally breaking down the walls of the traditional campus.
The second major development is the globalization or internationalization of education.  It is characterized by a major increase worldwide in the number of students studying abroad along with major changes in the pattern of student flows among the countries of the world.  East Asia, which has traditionally been a major source for students who study in North America and Europe, is slowly but surely becoming an important destination for study abroad.
Korea fits into this picture in a very interesting way.   South Korea possesses the world's most advanced digital networks, and a tertiary education system that is beginning to draw students from all over Asia and the rest of the world, especially from developing nations.  Its leading colleges and universities all have large numbers of U.S. educated Ph.D.s and many of those schools are aggressively expanding their English language curricula.
The potential for Korea, and for the Northeast Asia region, as an education and research hub, has yet to be realized.  However, it may come sooner than many predict.   NYU has just announced plans to establish a degree-granting campus in Shanghai.  South Korea has ambitious plans for the Global Campus in New Songdo, currently its major effort to attract international schools.
The information revolution, global mobility, and changing patterns of university-industry cooperation and innovation are some of the major factors that will transform education in this century.   This morning I read with interest that Stanford University is one of a larger group of schools that have expressed interest in establishing a campus in New York City! Read the article here.  There was a joke circulating among Stanford graduates about a certain Ivy League school being the "Stanford of the East Coast."  Now there may actually be such a school!  Why not a Stanford of Northeast Asia, situated here on the Korean peninsula between its larger neighbors and ideally positioned for East Asian studies, broadly conceived?

Unbridled Private Tutoring Costs in Seoul

An article in The Korea Times sheds light on some of the current practices taking place in the world of private tutoring in the wealthy Gangnam district of Seoul.  Beginning last August, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education conducted an investigation of underground private tutoring.  Of the illegal cases it uncovered, it chose to publicize one in which a chief tutor hired fifteen others, some of whom were regaled as "star tutors" and charged parents as much as 10 million won ($8,000) per month for private lessons.  Classes were held in apartments or studio apartments that were converted for the purpose.  Students paid 1.7 million won per month for math tutoring while the cost for English, Korean, science and social science classes was about 1 million won per month.  Classes were held eight times a month at 90 minutes per class.
In legal terms, the problem was not the amount of money involved, but rather that this group operated an actual hagwon without reporting it to the education office.  (Click on the illustration to see a full size version)

Educational Exchange with Korea: The Pyongyang Project

I've been aware for some time now that the United States has limited educational and cultural exchange with North Korea.  Last year I had the opportunity to discuss this at length with one of the participants in Syracuse University's exchange program with Kimchaek University in Pyongyang, a long-running program.
My thanks to Brian in Jeollanam-Do for calling my attention to a new study abroad program involving North Korea.  The Pyongyang Project is a non profit academic endeavor that started in 2009 as some young academics and their advisors forged a long term relationship with the Korean International Youth and Children's Travel Company (KIYCTC) in P'yongyang, and worked with North Korea's Ministry of Education, Kim Il Sung University and the DPRK Foreign Ministry.
This is an encouraging project and will be an interesting one, indeed, to follow.

LinkedIn versus Facebook in Korea

As elsewhere around the world, social networking in South Korea is in a rapid state of flux, in no small measure because of the proliferation of smart phones and the social capabilities that mobile devices make possible.  As noted in earlier posts, social networking via Cyworld arrived half a decade before Facebook appeared in the U.S.  However, with the arrival of Apple's iPhone near the end of 2009 and the rapid proliferation of Android devices, both Facebook and Twitter began to gain significant market share here.
Gigaom has an interesting article entitled "LinkedIn and Facebook:  Personal Versus Professional in the Identity Wars."    Like many users of internet services, I've found myself much more comfortable with LinkedIn than with Facebook, precisely because the former deals with professional identity rather than close family or personal ties. I suspect that Korean users of both services have noted this difference as well, especially since the boundaries between personal and professional, culturally speaking, are different in Korea than in the West.  This much can be seen from the rather dramatic differences between Cyworld and Facebook.  When it comes to social networking, it seems apparent that one size doesn't fit all.

The Mobile Broadband Revolution in Korea

Two articles in the Joongang Daily this morning provide further evidence of the mobile revolution that is sweeping the nation since the arrival of Apple's iPhone in late 2009.  The first article, entitled "Smartphone craze spurs location-based apps" explains a variety of location-based services that are taking off in Korea.  One will allow a woman to track the location of her boyfriend, another allows parents to follow the location of their children, and so forth.
The other article, describing how credit card companies and mobile carriers are vying for mobile payments business also presents some interesting data on the rapid diffusion of such services here.   (Click on the graphic to see a full-size version.)
Location-based services and mobile payments are but two examples of the types of services that become possible once broadband goes mobile.

Content Farms! A Nuisance to be Dealt With.

This morning, as usual, I looked through my Google Alerts and read a number of newspapers, all online.  The internet is a wonderful tool for finding information, if properly used.  However, it is also vulnerable to abuse by spammers, creators of malware, and those who seek to make money through the creation of the so-called "content farms."  These websites offer no new thinking or analysis and do not create their own content.  Instead, they use code to aggregate existing content on the internet, building on others intellectual property in hopes of attracting unsuspecting netizens.
This morning I ran across a site purporting to provide information about "Telecommunications in North Korea," a topic that I regularly follow.  The site, which shall go unnamed here, has a generic sounding name that might appeal to expats living and working overseas.  It's homepage contains no information whatsoever about North Korean telecommunications, instead carrying only advertising, and links through which you might "subscribe to this forum" or "register and participate."
Unfortunately, some people surfing the internet will be gullible enough to be drawn in by such schemes.  One litmus test for any website is whether the home page has an "About" tab or a paragraph clearly telling visitors who sponsors the web site, who creates the content, and the purpose of it.  In general, it is wise to avoid reading content or following links on sites that do not clearly and openly identify themselves.
I'll be pleased to answer questions or elaborate on this topic, in hopes of undermining the efforts of such "content farms" to attract traffic.

Language and Internet Use in Korea

An article in The Korea Times today touches on a topic which was the subject of many earlier posts on this blog (for example this one),  the important role of language in conditioning the web-surfing patterns of most Korean citizens. It notes that the internet has become the first source of information for many people, but expresses doubt that most Koreans make use of most of the information available on the web.“Text in Korean makes up less than 1 percent on the Internet. The remaining 99 percent has been useless,” says Lois Kim, head of PR and marketing for Google in Korea.  The article then proceeds to note progress in machine-translation technology, led by Google.  Improvements in such technology promise to open up a vast new world of content for Korean netizens.  I'm wondering if good translation alone will have this result or if there is more to it, such as cultural preferences for activities, topics, and so forth.  Comments welcome.

Samsung Unveils World's Thinnest Tablet Computer

My first reaction to the Apple iPad when it was initially introduced can be summarized in a word or two.  Too heavy!  That reaction was shared by many consumers.    The Joongang Ilbo  examines this dimension of competition among tablet computers in an article this morning.  The accompanying table (click on the graphic to see a full-size version) compares the dimensions and weight of Samsung's new Galaxy Tab 8.9 with two other rival products.  I've long thought that clip-board or standard paper size tablets are going to be widely adopted when they become as lightweight and as thin as an old-fashioned clipboard or paperback book.  We're very rapidly approaching that stage.

The Media and PyeongChang's Winter Games Bid

The Korea Times article entitled "PyeongChang to offer Media Convenience in Winter Games" caught my attention for several reasons.   One is that I frequently spend weekends in Gangwon Province not far from PyeongChang.  The other is that I've co-authored two books on the role of media, especially television, in the modern Olympic games.   The first was Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics, and the second Television in the Olympics.  The hyperlinks used in this post will take you to Google Books, where you can read either of them online, or download a PDF version.  I know that my co-authors will appreciate my sharing this information.
While television played a dominant role in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1992 games in Barcelona, the continued development of the internet and convergence of digital media since then has changed the nature of Olympic media coverage and, if anything, increased the importance of media infrastructure in determining the success of an Olympic bid.  In the decision that will be made by the IOC this July, between PyeongChang and two European competitors, I'm sure that the quality of the information infrastructure to support global media coverage, with an emphasis on television, will loom large. I'm also confident that PyeongChang's bid will be a strong one, bolstered by South Korea's world-leading digital networks.

Cheap Smartphones and the Mobile Broadband Revolution

The modular character of digital devices is becoming very apparent in the worldwide diffusion of smartphones.  Although the mainstream press often reports that the Apple iPhone is "manufactured" in China, this is really a misnomer.  Instead, it is assembled in China, rather like putting together lego blocks, while the highly sophisticated components are manufactured in Korea, Japan or elsewhere.
The Chosun Ilbo this morning carried an article headlined "Cheap Chinese Smartphones Poised for World Conquest."    It notes that ZTE, which ranked fourth in smartphone shipments in 2010, is selling its San Francisco smartphone through Tesco Mobile of the UK for 80 pounds per unit (about 145,000 won) based on prepaid calling plans.  By contrast, LG Electronics sells a phone which is almost identical, with better finish and trim, for 150 pounds.  Samsung, the article notes, has plans to release a lineup of cheaper smartphones later this year.
So the familiar pattern underlying the information revolution continues, the cost keeps decreasing while the computing and communications power increases!

Low Cost Online Education

Business Week is carrying an interesting article about "Online Education With a Low-Cost Twist."
It profiles Western Governor's University, which delivers online education at a fraction of the cost of for-profit players.  The university is a non profit institution, founded in 1997 by 19 governors from western states and headquartered in Salt Lake City.  The school combines reasonable tuition --just $2,890 for six month term-- with an academic model that lets students accelerate completion of their degree based on prior subject knowledge.  The price of a bachelors degree is about one half to one third the cost at for-profit institutions such as the University of Phoenix.

Digital Development in Korea is Finally Published!

Over the weekend I stopped by my old office to pick up mail and, to my surprise, found a package from Routledge in London containing a single advance copy of the book that Dr. Oh Myung and I wrote.  Digital Development in Korea:  Building an Information Society. (see Routledge web site for details)  It was very satisfying to finally hold a printed copy of the book in my hands, as regular readers of this blog will know from my prior posts about it.    Just use the search tool at the right and enter "Why a Book" to see all of my posts dealing with my personal motivation to undertake this project.
I've written or co-authored a number of books over the years, but this one is very special, mostly because of the opportunity to co-author it with Dr. Oh.  
The e-book version of our book should be available very shortly.  In the meantime, the hardback edition has been rather widely publicized and marketed around the world via Amazon and many other booksellers.
It is an interesting experience to work on a printed book in this day and age of instant electronic communication.   Dr. Oh and I worked on the book for nearly three years and delivered the final, edited manuscript to Routledge in early August of last year.
If any readers of this blog happen to read our book, I'd be pleased to entertain and respond to comments here.

A New Round of Competition for Smartphones and Tablets

As a user of both an iPhone 3GS and, starting just recently, a Samsung Galaxy Tab I've found the recent spate of media coverage about the "second round" of competition in the South Korean market quite interesting.  The Korea Times carried an article entitled "iPhone Drives Smartphone makers into corner."  It describes what it calls the "second round" of the smart phone wars.  In the first round, SK Telecom teamed with Samsung, while KT offered Apple's iPhone.  In the second round, by contrast, the competition is between the carriers, with both offering Apple's iPhone.   The article goes on to speculate whether market power is shifting from the carriers to the handset makers.
It is not only the second round of competition for mobile handsets, but also for tablet devices.  As noted in another article in The Korea Times, even though Apple has not yet announced when the iPad2 will be available in the Korean market, early adopters are flooding shopping agencies in a pre-launch craze. An agency which runs an Internet café on the country’s top portal Naver had over a hundred requests to purchase the iPad2. On this site it costs 845,000 won to buy a 16GB, Wi-fi iPad2, including the agent fees and shipping costs. It depends on the agent, but the price is usually 1.5 times more than the price in the United States which starts from $499.   Furthermore, consider the actual cost of the parts that make up an iPad2.  As reported in yet another article, iSuppli has revealed that the iPad2 3G equipped with GSM has about 370,00 won ($327) worth of parts while the CDMA version is slightly cheaper.

Smartphones Boost Mobile Commerce

As reported in The Korea Times, the rapid diffusion of smartphones in the South Korean market is giving a measurable boost to mobile commerce. 11st, an online market operated by SK Telecom, announced that it recorded 1.85 billion won in monthly sales through mobile shopping last month, the most since it started the service. Its mobile shopping application had 625,000 downloads, and Auction and G-market have also launched similar applications. Mobile commerce currently marks 4 billion won in monthly sales, and is expected to grow to 50 billion won this year. This is still a small part of the online shopping industry, but the growth is remarkable. According to the Korea Online Shopping Association, the market is set to double, exceeding 120 billion won next year. Not only open markets but also TV home shopping channels are stretching to the mobile sector. CJ O Shopping, Hyundai Home Shopping, GS Home Shopping, and Lotte Home Shopping have launched applications to attract smartphone users. They find it appealing as they can reach out to customers regardless of time or place. On top of showing the shopping programs in real-time, the home shopping channels are linking the mobile service with their other online and offline shops.

Monthly Private Education Cost for Preschoolers Averages $255

South Korea is known for its zealous pursuit of education, beginning in the pre-school years.  OECD data over the years have shown that Korean families invest more in private education than parents in other nations.  According to a report in The Korea Times, households in the Seoul metropolitan area last year spent an average of $255 (290,000 won) per month on private education.  This figure is based on a survey of nearly 1,500 households in Seoul.  The same report indicated that an average household spent 420,000 won per month on private schooling for an elementary school student and 568,000 won for a middle school student.