Cyworld boom in Korea

Moonkee KimEnglish 103

Rachel Hartley-Smith

What is the social networking?

According to Karen Brown, “Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or neighborhood subdivision (Karen Brown).” Social networking based on person to person such as in schools and in the workplaces, but in these days, online social networking became more popular than offline because there are lots of individuals who are looking for the new friendships and relationships. When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used.

In addition, Karen Brown said “When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used. These website are known as social sites. Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users. Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share a common interest such as hobbies, religion, or politics. Once he or she is granted access to a social networking website he or she can begin to socialize. This socialization may include reading the profile pages of other members and possible even contacting them. (Karen Brown).” Facebook, Myspace and Classmate could be considered online social networking website.

How did the website became so popular in Korea?

Social and technological background Korea has established the foundation of the

information superhighway network. It is hard to find a country that has high speed internet like Korea, except city-state Singapore. More than fifty percent of households in Korea now have easy access to internet. For this reason, so many people are using the internet for their own personal purposes including online social networking (Sunmi Kim).

What is Cyworld (Korean blog service)?

Cyworld is social networking website like Facebook and Myspace, but it has slightly different features. It is operated for South Korea, but foreigners also can use Cyworld. Cyworld was launched in 1999. The word Cy in Korean means ‘relationship,’ and it also means ‘cyber.’ Cyworld, therefore, literally means ‘relationship world,’ or ‘cyber world.’ According to Cyworld, members cultivate on- and off-line relationships by forming buddy relationships, buddy relationships are called Ilchon in Korean. These on- and off-line relationships with each other are formed through a service called “minihompy” (mini-homepage), which includes a photo gallery, video, diary, guestbook for visitors like “the wall” in the Facebook, friends list, and bulletin boards.

A Cyworld user can link his or her minihompy to another user’s minihompy to form a buddy relationship by posting something such as writings and images. It is similar to Facebook. As much as ninety percent of South Koreans in their twenties and twenty-five percent of the total population of South Korea are registered users of Cyworld, and as of September 2005, monthly unique visitors are about twenty million (www.cyworld.co.kr).

Korean celebrities are also known to have their own Cyworld. Celebrities are used to post his or her photo on the minihompy. Fan who interested in that star, he or she can see the daily life of star through the photos what is not known well to the public by the mass media.

Differences between Korean blog (minihompy) and American blog

Classification American blog Minihompy

Origin Normal homepage Profile (Information about him or her)

Character Open space Little bit closed

Expertise High Low

Popularity Low (Blog has a tendency to treat more specific subject than minihompy.)

High (Minihompy has a tendency to treat more miscellaneous informa-tion.)

User’s degree of freedom High Low

Proportion of males to females

High male ratio High female ratio

Main user age 20s~30s 10s~20s

Main contents Text and putting bulletin board first

Picture and putting al-bum first

Operation window size Big Small

Efficiency to the public High Low

Special features of Cyworld

Ilchon (buddy relationships) – List of people like Friends in the Facebook

This is a list of the Ilchon.

This is a list of the friends at Facebook.

This is a list of the Ilchon who are on-

line.

This is a list of the friends who are on-line

at Facebook.

Pado tagee (wave-riding) – This describes visiting one’s friends’ minihompy as a wave through the Ilchon list.

Mini-life – The part of minihompy. Users can create his or her own avatar Internet-based 3D virtual worlds.

Minihompy – A kind of homepage. Most services are free, but if one wanted to decorate his or her own minihompy, he or she can add BGM (Back ground Music) and a variety of layouts into minihompy by purchasing them through ‘Dotori.’

Menu bar is Korean.

Today’s feeling

Menu bar could be change in English.

Total visi-tors’ num-

ber

Today visitors’ number

Dotori – Dotori is a kind of virtual currency. Through the Dotori, users can buy a variety of layouts and BGM for their own minihompy or blog. One Dotori costs dime. Users need six Dotoris to buy one BGM and six Dotoris to buy layout what could be used during seven days. In addition, users can buy a BGM and layouts for the other people and send it to friends or the other people as a present.

SK what is a company offers cyworld service is earning lots of money through Dotori. According to CNN, “Cyworld’s daily revenue from selling ‘Dotoris’ is estimated to be around $300,000 as of September 2005 (Erick Schonfeld).”

Total number of Dotoris

What I have

List of friends who updated their minihompy

Without “Skin”

With “Skin” – Skin is a kind of decoration for mini-

hompy (users can purchase it by using Dotori).

The list of BGM (Back Ground Music). Users also can purchase music by us-

ing Dotori.

Blog – Cyworld blogs have started to offer more services like American blog websites such as blogger. Many people started to use Cyworld blog service, but users still prefer having a minihompy to a blog.

Club – A club is an online community space where users can share their opinions about specific subject.

Paper – Paper was started before blog service. It intended to offer a service like American blog service, but now users almost do not use this service.

NateOn – NateOn is an instant messenger service such as MSN and AIM. It is related with Cyworld. A lot of Koreans use Nate on as a messenger. They can check new post on their own minihompy or blog and listen to the BGM of that minihompy or blog. People also can watch minihompy updates of friends’ who are added on NateOn and can have conversations with a friend.

N (New) is an alarm for update of friend’s

minihompy.

People can lis-ten to friend’s BGM through

NateOn.

My minihopy’s status

Why do people use and spend lots of time for Cyworld?

◊ A minihompy is a space for where people can see life of the others.

Diary – Write down dairy of that day and show user’s self-expression

Photo album – Keep a record of daily life by posting photos

Today section and icon – Show his or her feelings like a Facebook status

Video – Show entertaning materials to the others and show their life (singing, playing sport and etc).

Diary section

Photo album

◊ A minihompy is a space for social relationships.

Offer lots of communicative functions

Guestbook for visitors – By clicking on a visitor’s name, the owner of that minihompy can move to visitor’s minihompy.

Authorize accessibility – 1) Owner of minihompy can block the other people’s

access to owner’s minihompy by setting up limitation. Only authorized people can access and see photos, writings and so on.

2) User can categorize their friends. For example, friends who are included at level one can see more things than friends who are included at level two.

Anyone who visit my minihompy can read this writing.

Only two persons can read and modify this writing – the author

and the owner of this minihompy

Owner’s comment about the writing

Owner can move to au-thor’s minihompy by click

his name or icon.

Comment to postings such as writings, images and photos.

Searching function – People can find someone easily if he or she knew someone’s name.

◊ A minihompy is a space for sharing information.

Owner of minihompy fulfill his minihompy

with information that he or she is interested in and clips similar information from the others’ minihompy.

◊ A minihompy is good for entertaining. Young generations have started to bring

their digital cameras or cell phone built-in camera to take a photo and post it on the minihompy as a Cyworld boom was occured.

How are on-line culture and off-line culture related?

As mentioned previously about club, a club is an online community space where users can share their opinions about specific subjects. Sometimes, the members of community promote off-line meeting. Over the on-line space, they extend their relationships to the reality.