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CYWORLD US [us.cyworld.com]
I haven't looked into to see how simliar (or not) it is from the Korean version, but I'm sure you'll get the idea.
if you don't know what cyworld is..do a quick search on this site. you'll find I've written plenty about it.
just as a quicky:
- web 2.0 in action
- cyworld has about 13 million active unique members in Korea alone.
- Chinese cyworld has a new member signup to the tune of about 10,000 new registrations A DAY.
- it is a new business model that is so successful has effected all areas of internet usage here.
- eg: it is robust and easy to use and so prevalent that it is often used in lieu of a website (much like blogs are, but is 10000X more versatile than a blog - which it has as part of it).
- eg2: you see cyworld address in search results (it has its own section! see Korean SERP and Beyond [webmasterworld.com] thread), print ads, used for complements to corporate sites (or in lieu of).
- eg3: integrated with mobile activities
Go see what the hype is all about and let me know. I'm interested to see how US market will take to it. And now I can finally see. Lycos launched their mini-hompy
port a few months back, but I haven't heard any buzz about it since then (doesn't seem to ge "taking"...we'll have to see).
I still one of the BIGGEST problems is the the constrained size. I STILL find it clausterphobic and I've had years to get used to it. US market I think will be even more sensitive to it. (this is somewhat solved by the "clubs" feature...but that's another story.
so sayeth GrendelKhan{TSU}
[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 10:31 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2006]
[edited by: bill at 1:52 am (utc) on Aug. 10, 2006]
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I'd be interested to hear how close this is to the Korean original.
now what should I do with my 50 acorns...
I signed up for an account and checked out some of the features. It's a lot cleaner than the MySpace interface. I could see how it could appeal to that crowd.
I'd be interested to hear how close this is to the Korean original.
well first thing is the index portal page is VERY sparce in comparison.. korean portal pages are slammed with a everything they can possible fit in it. perhaps the US one will get busier as they add more features or people get used it. Right now, I assume they are keepin it simple so people aren't overwhelmed.
just looking at the two home pages and you'll see what I mean:
us.cyworld.com
www.cyworld.com (korean)
yikes! talk about stripped down!
the set up process and minihom UI basic layouts and minihome usage are basically the same. the biggest thing is that you have only a fraction of the inventory and featuers. first and most obvious was lack of songs. playing music and having a jukebox is a staple. I'm sure they are getting to that with licensing etc.
cyworld paper and town are missing. eg: town is dedicated to corporate cyworlds.
you can't buy new items yet. I'm interested to see how that goes there. it is VERY easy here cause its tied into cell phone bills. basically, just enter you mobile number and it shows up there. no other process necessary (helps that its owned by SK telecom--largest mobile carrier in Korea).
I'll try to get more with specificss later..but there are about a billion little things I'd have to point out so... :p
so sayeth GrendelKhan{TSU}
ASIDE: one thing I noticed is that seems they ARE sharing email databases. I couldn't sign up with the same email address I use for my korean cyworld. :/ interesting considering it says you cannot share or crosslink / scrapbook cyworlds from different countries. That's a shame. that's be very useful. I'm annoyed they are using real name (first) when posting or showing mini-rooms. it should say that in the sign-up instructions. they do that here...but I thought it'd be diffenrent for US site. Ie; there is no ID AND real name. the name you sign up with is the one that is used everywhere. so people should know that. email is just for login purposes.
very general, quick overview of some of the major areas:
1) much of it comse from dottori (acorn decorations, avatars and upgrades). ie: paying for upgrades to the mini-rooms or charactres or whathave you. so its free to join but if you want snazzy stuff on your page...you pay.
As of early 2006, Cy goers were reported spending 250 million won (US$255,000) worth of dottori, which would come to more than 91 billion (US$93 million) annually. that's not bad for twinkly pants on for your online avatar.
a big fact in the success of that method is:
--they were very smart about how they set it up ...ie: very much lends itsself to wanting to add things (more dottori).
-- very very cheap. like 10 won up to like 1700 or something for the most expensive (I think..haven't checked recently..but its cheap). plus they are time based. so you can only have a decoratoin for like anywhere from a day to a month. ie: recurring rev.
-- its super easy to pay...since SK owns it... most of it charged via cell phone bill.
just enter your number and done. ie: you don't feel the pain at point of purchase. the sense is "I'll have another 10won on my phone bill"...which of course, equates to not feeling you paid anytning at all.
2) there is advertising. on the portal part (home page and stores).
3) a lot of the cyworlds themselves are corporate run paid-for. that is, you have to pay to even have it as a corporation (non-personal). clubs, town, etc...all have pay-for to make models. again, relateively cheap, no development necessary and its everyone is on cy...so companies do it.
AGAIN: one should note that in fact, many companies and people nowadasys have a cy IN LIEU of a website or blog. they give you everything, so why bother? that is very significant and very representative of cy's success.
businesses here have long ago figured out Cyworld and other virtual markets (there are ton of mini-hompy competitors now..some with 3-D real time worlds! :-o) are as important for a number of products and services as the physical markets. the offline and offline multi-level integration for marketing here is very sophisticated. seems flow from TV, to offline event to online community. Korean people/culture lends to it, but the availablitly of things like cyworld and otheer web2.0 technos certain solidified it.
I read someone report an estimate of about 90% of all Korean teenagers and twenty-somethings registered with Cyworld alone. And cyworlders are uploading over six million photos site every day. Again, this is JUST cyworld--JUST in Korea. that's compettive with worldwide services that cover english speakin markets.
4) companies that have mini-hompy (as they are generically referred to) lay down lots of money attracting people to their mini-hompy.. how? by giving away dottoris just for visiting. ie: paid to visit. again very cheap (recall 10won each) and in the frezy for more dottoris...FREE ones...people do come. I did a promotion a while back... I think the cost about $3000USD for giving away about...um.... 5000 dottori points (? can't remember exactly)... anyway: had like 10,000 unique visitors REGISTER (these are people with cyworlds) within a few hours or soemthing nutz (Or something -- it WAS a while ago). Anyway...point was the cy is a promo tool and its interactive (ie: can be very sticky) and so I happily paid for virtual gifts giveaway so people came to my cyworld read stuff... and THEN could hop over to my "actual" site if they wanted to do business/ transaction (which btw, ends up being good for SEO purposes as well as well as..sales). very successful method with the right product and implementation.
5) inventory is infinite and basically "free" to make. you are selling gif files. (aside: its big enough where third-party market has grown: there are lots of compaines here that all they do is make dottori (yup, little hats for your avatar or soemthing) for cyworld. yup, they are dottori manufacturers, LOL).
6) international expansion. the chinese cyworld is doing incredible. again, nearly 10,000 new registratiosn A DAY! japan is ok too. but either way...all very good new revenue streams. And now, US cyworld just launched but we have yet to see how western world will take to the model--- but the hopes are certainly high as the timing is good: lycos (aka DAUM) already launched their mini-hompy port (hense educating the market a bit first) and the web 2.0 thing is all the rage, so to speak. Here it is in action. Again, myspace, MSN spaces etc...all inspired from the cyworld model.
There are other revenue streams as well (mobile for example) but that's a pretty good cross-setion of it. pretty guineous if you ask me. a very robust system, but no crazy or breakthrough technology (though I heard from one tech that there is some tricky stuff with some of the movie features-- daum planets is more a showcase for that though) ...just a hellavuh a lot of good design and knowhow slappin in all togher in the way they did. tons of deals with secondary markets and business affiliates to keep them well ingrained in the market and money flowing as well.
my skepticism again comes from the contrained enviroment of the mini-hompy as well as the "cool" or "aggro" factor. "western" sites overall feel more abotu coolness factor. Korean sites have that cutesy thing giong on--even US cyworld is still heavy with the cute stuff...though I do notice more "gansta style" so to speak skins on the US skin shop. lol
once again, should be interesting to see its progress. Wonder if they are going to advertise. I think one big push to kick things off wouldn't be a bad idea for them. its pretty viral after that.
(dunno if its ok to post this so edit/delete as you see fit). here's a link to more stuff I wrote about cyworld here at WebmasterWorld: Cyworld/Mini-hompy phenonomon posts by GrendelKhan{TSU} at WebmasterWorld [google.com]
=====
So now its, Lycos planets, US cyworld, Naver in Games (ijji), Yahoo Answers, and UI changes that (to me) reflect Korean style influence (like with yahoo and googles mixing of search results ala korea Combination SERP--I bet we'll see much more of that down the road).
2006 the korean internet invasion has begun! :p woot!
--so sayeth GrendelKhan{TSU}
[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 6:58 am (utc) on Aug. 10, 2006]
Acorns, cartoon alter-egos and bubble-gum kitsch may not seem like the most intimidating weapons for a cultural invasion, but those are the tools Henry Chon is brandishing.The chief executive of Cyworld Inc. is hoping to translate the hugely popular Korean Web site Cyworld.com into a hip destination for American teens and 20-somethings.
My take was they are being quite reservedly optimistic about Cyworld's chances in the US. It's not a hype-filled recommendation by any stretch. I haven't come across many English articles on major US news outlets either. I have the feeling that this will take a while to grow wings.
Most likely, their success in the west will only be a fraction of that at home, relatively speaking. It will be interesting to see how big of a fraction, especially competing against somewhat established services like myworld (though the myworld UI is really a bloody mess).
Just messing around a bit, I notice they didn't do enough cross-browser testing. I can't register an account using Firefox ("check availability" doesn't work), but there are no problems with Opera. I suspect that's the consequence of the type attributes missing from all inline Javascript tags. Very embarrassing error for a service with such a track record!
After registering worked in Opera, I wasn't able to login with the same browser, but this time Firefox worked. That may all just have been a hickup on my system, but it certainly left a somewhat suboptimal first impression...
I've talked about this a lot. Koreans really don't care or think about FF or opera as they are nonexistent in Korea. But they will end up dealing with it as its now important for compatibility in englsih speaking markets.
That's a good follow-up article for anyone interested in this phenomenon. Any problems there Grendel?
naw. it was a pretty general article so it all gels well.
That said, the biggest complaint I hear from US counterparts is that you cannot link with the other international cyworlds... which kinda flies in the face of what they say in the article of having the goal of being a global product -- global social network.
I mean, you'd THINK Cywold would have worked that out...since there are gunna be a lot of korean-american types who want an english cyworld and connect with family/friends in Korea via cyworld. Low hanging fruit, so to speak. As you mentioned..there is no big marketing going on, and as in other countries are probably just waiting for the viral effect. Given that, why not make the users most likely to use it off the bat happy?
Ya figure with aobut 2mill ethnic koreans in the US...would give ya 1/2 mill to million sign-ups right there (koreans are all about the personal network obviously). Yet, I recently had at least 10 friends whine about no connectivity already (as if I could do anything about it. lol) and many more say the reason they don't is cause it doesn't connect with the Korean version (where all they friends and relatives are)...if that means anything. (yah, its not exactly a big sample, but as with so many things about "the Korean internet" (again: being a homogenous, horizontally social-network oriented people) a few people can be VERY representive in the most important ways and word-of-mouth is powerful.
Granted, these same people subsequently asked me to visit their cyworlds so they could get more "dottori" points.:p lol.
Its still VERY early...so we'll have to see. But they got some serious work and hurdles ahead still, imo.
--so sayeth GrendelKhan{TSU}
Aside: there was another article in the Korea Herald with more detail and slightly different spin...you need an account and pay for it to see so I didn't bother posting it.
PS: I posted about Lyco's mini-hompy launch (Lyco Planets)a while back. Exact same concept, slightly different application. I haven't checked in a while... but it will be interesting to see how these to do in comparison with eachother in the English speaking market. (and of course, relative to MySpace type existing services). I'm still stuck on the annoying size contraint as my personal big hang up, but koreans got used to it to get all the nice goodies..maybe same will end up being true in US/English markets.
[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 1:18 pm (utc) on Sep. 4, 2006]
