380 Articles for '전체'
- 2008/06/04 Future of Web Technology Seoul (2)
- 2008/06/04 Lunch 2.0 at Daum
- 2008/06/04 Korea has the fastest broadband connectivity
- 2008/05/29 Jaxtr broadens its coverage in the Asian market (3)
- 2008/05/28 Open Web Asia launches - Asia's Web 2.0 Workgroup! (3)
- 2008/05/27 Meet-up with Angus Lau (2)
- 2008/05/20 Daum search traffic surged, helped by cafe search
- 2008/05/20 How Korea's LG became the top national brand in India (1)
- 2008/05/15 Cyworld Japan looks desparate (3)
- 2008/05/13 Chinese earthquakes (1)
Future of Global Web Technology conference, spearheaded by the Future Web Forum (where our friend Channy Yun is actively involved), will be held in Seoul on June 19. Vint Cerf will keynote. Their website's here.
The latest Lunch 2.0 Seoul, the occasional get-together among web industry people in Korea, was held at Daum Communication, a prominent internet portal of Korea.
Daum's CEO himself, Mr. Seok, came this time and spoke about Daum's strategies and challenges. He later found himself on a hot seat, taking some tough questions like "Is Daum interested in acquiring startup innovations at all?"
Here I'm pitching the Open Web Asia '08 (we finally have the name for our conference.) Lunch 2.0 members had great interest and some even showed interest in sponsoring the conference. Speaking of the conference, although I've been quiet about it all this time, we have been making some very nice progress so far. I'll update on that next week.
Daum's CEO himself, Mr. Seok, came this time and spoke about Daum's strategies and challenges. He later found himself on a hot seat, taking some tough questions like "Is Daum interested in acquiring startup innovations at all?"
Here I'm pitching the Open Web Asia '08 (we finally have the name for our conference.) Lunch 2.0 members had great interest and some even showed interest in sponsoring the conference. Speaking of the conference, although I've been quiet about it all this time, we have been making some very nice progress so far. I'll update on that next week.
TAG Daum, Lunch 2.0
According to the newest report from Akamai, South Korea has, on average, the fastest broadband connection in the world.
You know what's funny though? The service that drew the most number of consumer complains in Korea in 2007 turned out to be broadband internet service. Man, us the Koreans are one heck of impatient folks. But being impatient is a good thing, at least when it comes to the fast internet.
You know what's funny though? The service that drew the most number of consumer complains in Korea in 2007 turned out to be broadband internet service. Man, us the Koreans are one heck of impatient folks. But being impatient is a good thing, at least when it comes to the fast internet.
Jaxtr, a leading internet phone company, announced they are expanding to a host of countries including Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.
To bypass expensive international phone charges, callers can now get a free local number in their country from jaxtr to dial directly – on any mobile or landline phone – without the hassle of extra numbers or access codes. This is a permanent number that callers can save in their address book and use to dial directly each time they want to call their friend abroad.
Here's how Jaxtr works: Visit www.jaxtr.com and link your phone to the Web. You’ll receive a personalized link, called a jaxtr link, which allows your friends to call you – for free – using any mobile or landline phone. Your friends simply click on the jaxtr link and enter their number. Jaxtr then generates a local number in their country that your international friends can save and use whenever they want to call you, without being tethered to their computer or getting the shock of a huge bill.
It seems that Skype and other internet phone companies are making hard efforts to launch into the Asian market, in order to expand their geographic territories. Recently, Skype installed campus-wide free phone service at Hankook University of Foreign Studies, a foreign studies-dedicated university in Korea. Students at the university, who make frequent international calls (given the nature of their institute), can make free (or very cheap) calls anywhere on campus - Skype says. When Skype installs a cheap phone service at a Korean university, you know the internet phone service (VoIP) market is becoming mainstream.
To bypass expensive international phone charges, callers can now get a free local number in their country from jaxtr to dial directly – on any mobile or landline phone – without the hassle of extra numbers or access codes. This is a permanent number that callers can save in their address book and use to dial directly each time they want to call their friend abroad.
Here's how Jaxtr works: Visit www.jaxtr.com and link your phone to the Web. You’ll receive a personalized link, called a jaxtr link, which allows your friends to call you – for free – using any mobile or landline phone. Your friends simply click on the jaxtr link and enter their number. Jaxtr then generates a local number in their country that your international friends can save and use whenever they want to call you, without being tethered to their computer or getting the shock of a huge bill.
It seems that Skype and other internet phone companies are making hard efforts to launch into the Asian market, in order to expand their geographic territories. Recently, Skype installed campus-wide free phone service at Hankook University of Foreign Studies, a foreign studies-dedicated university in Korea. Students at the university, who make frequent international calls (given the nature of their institute), can make free (or very cheap) calls anywhere on campus - Skype says. When Skype installs a cheap phone service at a Korean university, you know the internet phone service (VoIP) market is becoming mainstream.
TAG Jaxtr, VoIP
Gang Lu of Mobinode stepped up and built the Open Web Asia workgroup, arguably Asia's Web 2.0 Workgroup. And Gang also kindly included my humble blog there. Thanks Gang!
We're tired of hearing "There's no good English blog about Asian web industry." Now you have Openweb.Asia, so please stop whining. :)
Gang says he should perhaps add more blogs before he lets the world know about the site. If you know good English blogs/sites about Asian web industry, ping the information to Gang at gang dot lu at mobinode dot com.
We're tired of hearing "There's no good English blog about Asian web industry." Now you have Openweb.Asia, so please stop whining. :)
Gang says he should perhaps add more blogs before he lets the world know about the site. If you know good English blogs/sites about Asian web industry, ping the information to Gang at gang dot lu at mobinode dot com.
The domain, again, is Openweb.Asia
TAG Gang Lu, Mobinode, Open Web Asia
Hong Kong-based Angus Lau is the author of 852 Signal blog, and is with the online spreadsheet company EditGrid. He's also part of the working group behind the upcoming Asia Web Conference.
Angus was born in HK, educated in the US, worked in Shanghai where he met his Korean wife (the couple communicate in Mandarin), and is now back at HK after working in Japan and the US for quite some time. Man, talk about metropolitan life.
I had the pleasure of meeting and having a pleasant chat with Angus last week. Angus said Hong Kong is perhaps too small a market for web startups to gain sizeable market traction. And of course the VC environment for web startups isn't exactly that of the Valley. Which is why companies in HK, just like Korean companies, should either globalize or die, I think.
Thanks again Angus for taking out your time. By the way, the Chelsea jersey in the above picture is from the years when I worked at Samsung Mobile's marketing division, when we started sponsoring the football club. Back in 2005, there were a lot of doubts if Samsung's humongous sponsorship will pay off. Now it turns out the Chelsea sponsor deal was one of the best marketing decisions Samsung Mobile ever made, many say.
Angus was born in HK, educated in the US, worked in Shanghai where he met his Korean wife (the couple communicate in Mandarin), and is now back at HK after working in Japan and the US for quite some time. Man, talk about metropolitan life.
I had the pleasure of meeting and having a pleasant chat with Angus last week. Angus said Hong Kong is perhaps too small a market for web startups to gain sizeable market traction. And of course the VC environment for web startups isn't exactly that of the Valley. Which is why companies in HK, just like Korean companies, should either globalize or die, I think.
Thanks again Angus for taking out your time. By the way, the Chelsea jersey in the above picture is from the years when I worked at Samsung Mobile's marketing division, when we started sponsoring the football club. Back in 2005, there were a lot of doubts if Samsung's humongous sponsorship will pay off. Now it turns out the Chelsea sponsor deal was one of the best marketing decisions Samsung Mobile ever made, many say.
TAG Angus Lau
Daum, Korea's #2 portal, had 27M monthly search queries in April (link in Korean), a 75% increase over two months.
For portals, search is the name of the game, and Daum's position in Korea is no better than Yahoo's in the US. Naver, the top dog, has over 70% market share. Daum didn't hide its intention to play a catch-up game in search market, and their weapon of choice was to introduce better search over its "cafe" (web bulletin board) content.
Daum believed web BBSes are some great archives of useful knowledge, and the strategy seems to pay off, judging from Daum's search market share gains. A few posts before, I called BBS a rather older system - now, BBS combined with very robust search might be an entirely different story.
For portals, search is the name of the game, and Daum's position in Korea is no better than Yahoo's in the US. Naver, the top dog, has over 70% market share. Daum didn't hide its intention to play a catch-up game in search market, and their weapon of choice was to introduce better search over its "cafe" (web bulletin board) content.
Daum believed web BBSes are some great archives of useful knowledge, and the strategy seems to pay off, judging from Daum's search market share gains. A few posts before, I called BBS a rather older system - now, BBS combined with very robust search might be an entirely different story.
Knowledge has a podcast with Y.V. Verma, who has been director of human resources and management support for LG's India division since 1997. Verma has even authored a book on LG India called "Passion: The Untold Story of LG Electronics India."
Verma says the key success factor of LG India was empowerment - handling the decision power to the local staff as a way to hire and retain good talent. Sounds easy, but it's definitely not the typical way Korean conglomerates are run, I can say.
I posted this because some of the readers might be working at a local branch of a multinational company. Mr Verma is a living evidence that you can succeed big time at multinationals, or if you are determined enough, you might even pull a book endorsement. What's cooler than writing a book? (except for blogging, that is ;-) )
Cyworld Japan announced a site renewal plan where it will essentially turn into a place for pro-Korean community in Japan.
This might make sense as what little number of Cyworld users in Japan are mostly K-wave followers or Korean expats anyway.
But on the other hand, this is something like, let's say, Xing France announcing it will focus on offering German job information to French people. Bad analogy, I know, but my point is Cyworld JP is essentially turning itself into a service that's quite limited to serving small, niche demographics. Which is their own statement that Cyworld JP is irrelevent to the mainstream Japanese web users.
Just another evidence that in Asian web industry, it seems so difficult (nearly impossible) to produce a "cross-cultural" hit service, whose success isn't limited only to its own country. Which is a topic that's well worth discussing in our upcoming Asia Web conference.
This might make sense as what little number of Cyworld users in Japan are mostly K-wave followers or Korean expats anyway.
But on the other hand, this is something like, let's say, Xing France announcing it will focus on offering German job information to French people. Bad analogy, I know, but my point is Cyworld JP is essentially turning itself into a service that's quite limited to serving small, niche demographics. Which is their own statement that Cyworld JP is irrelevent to the mainstream Japanese web users.
Just another evidence that in Asian web industry, it seems so difficult (nearly impossible) to produce a "cross-cultural" hit service, whose success isn't limited only to its own country. Which is a topic that's well worth discussing in our upcoming Asia Web conference.
My heart goes out to the people of China who lost their loved ones in the yesterday's earthquakes...
Photo from CNN.com
