4 Articles for 'MySpace'
- 2008/06/24 The top social network in Asia is... Friendster? (6)
- 2008/04/24 Up close and personal with Myspace CEO Chris DeWolf (4)
- 2008/04/15 Myspace launches in Korea officially
- 2008/03/11 Myspace Korea launched (5)
Venturebeat's Eric Eldon reports "Friendster’s growth in Asia could make it the top social network in the world, once again." The article quotes Friendster's claim that they are the number one social network service in Asia, leading everyone (Facebook, Myspace, Mixi, Cyworld) by a big margin.
Wait a minue.. Friendster number one in Asia? Every day, I'm getting emails from Facebook and LinkedIn about a new friend request or new updates from my friends. But I haven't had a single email from Friendster for a long time. So at least for me, Friendster doesn't feel like a very active service - But then I may not be profiled as an "average" internet user in Asia.
Stats like these bring a question to my mind: Will the Western/US social network services (Myspace, FB, Friendster) take over the Asian market eventually? Or, will one of the local players (Mixi, Cyworld, 51.com) come out as the Asia's social network winner, transforming itself into a regional market leader that can compete neck-and-neck with Myspace and FB in the global market? Or will every single Asian market have its own social network of choice, without going the consolidation route? What do you think?
Wait a minue.. Friendster number one in Asia? Every day, I'm getting emails from Facebook and LinkedIn about a new friend request or new updates from my friends. But I haven't had a single email from Friendster for a long time. So at least for me, Friendster doesn't feel like a very active service - But then I may not be profiled as an "average" internet user in Asia.
Stats like these bring a question to my mind: Will the Western/US social network services (Myspace, FB, Friendster) take over the Asian market eventually? Or, will one of the local players (Mixi, Cyworld, 51.com) come out as the Asia's social network winner, transforming itself into a regional market leader that can compete neck-and-neck with Myspace and FB in the global market? Or will every single Asian market have its own social network of choice, without going the consolidation route? What do you think?
Here's the video of my interview with Myspace co-founder and CEO, Chris DeWolf, and also with Travis Katz and Sung Lee, both VPs at Myspace. (Sung is heading up the Asian operation of Myspace.)
Do you know what keeps Myspace CEO up at night? The fact that there are local competitors in every country, and that he has to keep track of about 30 of them.
As a tech blogger, this was really a golden opportunity for me - Well, it's not like you get to interview Myspace CEO every day, right?
The interview went very smoothly. I'm not necessarily saying this was a good thing though. In retrospect, I think the interview could have carried more "sting", with perhaps more jokes and curve balls (ie. hard questions) thrown. To defend myself a bit, somehow the settings were not entirely conversational - I suspect this was because at the end of every sentence we all had to wait for the translator to translate the entire paragraph.
By the way, it's worth noting that more and more Silicon Valley CEOs are visiting Korea. Interview with Chris marked the second time I met a big-name Silicon Valley CEO during the span of three days (the first such meeting was with Max Levchin of Slide.com.)
So who should I interview the next time in Korea, Google founders maybe? :)
Do you know what keeps Myspace CEO up at night? The fact that there are local competitors in every country, and that he has to keep track of about 30 of them.
As a tech blogger, this was really a golden opportunity for me - Well, it's not like you get to interview Myspace CEO every day, right?
The interview went very smoothly. I'm not necessarily saying this was a good thing though. In retrospect, I think the interview could have carried more "sting", with perhaps more jokes and curve balls (ie. hard questions) thrown. To defend myself a bit, somehow the settings were not entirely conversational - I suspect this was because at the end of every sentence we all had to wait for the translator to translate the entire paragraph.
By the way, it's worth noting that more and more Silicon Valley CEOs are visiting Korea. Interview with Chris marked the second time I met a big-name Silicon Valley CEO during the span of three days (the first such meeting was with Max Levchin of Slide.com.)
So who should I interview the next time in Korea, Google founders maybe? :)
launched officially today. Chris DeWolfe, Myspace CEO who is visiting Korea, delivered a keynote at Yonsei University today. Myspace is also throwing a chic, "clubby" launching party tonight in Seoul too.
Their Korea strategy? The same strategy that they used in the US when they started out, namely to focus initially on Indie bands and musicians and build self-service content outlets for them. Myspace will also try to work with local web companies to develop Myspace apps tailored for Korean market. Chris DeWolf said Myspace is fully aware that each local market has different usage pattern and taste, especially when it comes to web services, and therefore Myspace Korea will be "quite differentiated" from Myspace US. For example, as I had introduced in earlier post, Myspace Korea offers some Korea-only features such as "Minilog", a Twitter-like mini blog. The UI is also much tailored for Korean users' tastes, says Myspace.
As a side note, I was supposed to do a one-on-one interview with Chris DeWolve at tomorrow's Myspace Developer Conference Seoul (think Guy Kawasaki-Steve Ballmer talk), but Chris had a last minute schedule change and I'll be talking to Travis Katz and Sung Lee, both Myspace VPs. It would have been very cool if I could interview Myspace CEO for an hour, but still I'm sure Sung and Travis are terrific people and I'll have a heck of time talking with them. If video becomes available, I'll post the interview video on this blog later on.
Their Korea strategy? The same strategy that they used in the US when they started out, namely to focus initially on Indie bands and musicians and build self-service content outlets for them. Myspace will also try to work with local web companies to develop Myspace apps tailored for Korean market. Chris DeWolf said Myspace is fully aware that each local market has different usage pattern and taste, especially when it comes to web services, and therefore Myspace Korea will be "quite differentiated" from Myspace US. For example, as I had introduced in earlier post, Myspace Korea offers some Korea-only features such as "Minilog", a Twitter-like mini blog. The UI is also much tailored for Korean users' tastes, says Myspace.
As a side note, I was supposed to do a one-on-one interview with Chris DeWolve at tomorrow's Myspace Developer Conference Seoul (think Guy Kawasaki-Steve Ballmer talk), but Chris had a last minute schedule change and I'll be talking to Travis Katz and Sung Lee, both Myspace VPs. It would have been very cool if I could interview Myspace CEO for an hour, but still I'm sure Sung and Travis are terrific people and I'll have a heck of time talking with them. If video becomes available, I'll post the interview video on this blog later on.
TAG Korea,
is up now, and the first thing I notice is that it's not just a simple word-by-word translation of the original Myspace service. The Korean version has its own site menus that include "Minilog", something that's not found in the US version. Minilog is apparently the aggregation of snippets of messages composed by Myspacers. Overall, the site is quite well localized - but it remains to be seen if the service will become the "post-Cyworld" in Korea.
TAG Korea,
