Foreign Web Giants Find Little Success in S.Korea

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Foreign Web Giants Find Little Success in S.Korea
Updated Apr.21,2008 06:55 KST

Is South Korea a graveyard for overseas Internet companies? American Internet heavies such as Google, YouTube and MySpace, leaders of the so-called "web 2.0" frenzy, face heavy odds in South Korea. Why is it that these companies boast astronomical numbers of subscribers and users in many other markets around the world but find little luck here?
MySpace, the world's largest online social network, launched a Korean service last week, but local portal and blog users have given the new service the cold shoulder. "I signed up out of curiosity, but I canceled my membership soon after because I found it un-user friendly," a Korean blogger reported. Another blogger said, "MySpace isn't new or interesting for Korean users who are already familiar with online communities like Cyworld."
Google and YouTube are also having a hard time here. Since it launched its Korean-language service in 2006, Google, the world's top Internet search engine, has earned a mere 2 percent-range share of the local Internet portal market. YouTube launched a Korean-language service in January. But while the world's largest video sharing website boasts about 30 million visitors per month in the U.S., in Korea it has only about one-tenth the number of users as PandoraTV, South Korea's No. 1 video sharing website.
Experts say the foreign challengers have failed to understand the peculiarities of the South Korean market. Their quality suffers in comparison to local offerings in terms of Korean-language features, site design and sophistication of services, South Korean experts argue.
In addition, South Korean Internet users generally tend to be uninterested in services from abroad. AFP reported recently, "South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with some 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. But it has largely shunned popular overseas services."
Since 2004, there has been no notable change in the rankings of the local portal market, where Naver tops the list. Cho Il-sang, CEO of MetriX, an online survey agency, said, "Overseas web service providers should be more sincere in approaching the Korean market, so that their participation in the market can give a wholesome impetus to the development of the Korean Internet industry."
(englishnews@chosun.com )

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