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Google has large loyal user communities in almost all major markets in the world, what's so special about Korea? Why the doemestic ones are better, if they are?
Korea is one of the most highly wired in the world. It has developed a strong soft infrastructure of chat and community as there are just so many koreans on line and more development of web services has been done in Korea than most other places.
The popularity of a search engine is largely depend upon its technology, this should also hold true in Korea. Daum is their largest portal, but they donot have the most popular search. So I am really curious if empass indeed has better technology(index size, relevancy, speed, refresh rate etc.) than Google.
google has a very clean look, especially on the front page. I wonder if that puts some people off?
You said
>>The popularity of a search engine is largely depend upon its technology<<
Now im not sure i agree with this! ATW/Fast for example has great technology, but not so great popularity. Exception to the rule? And i dont think people worry too much about technology, as long as the results are useful and the whole website experience is a useful and happy one.
Did you ask the Koreans you talked to WHY they preferred Daum? It seems a fairly obvious follow-up question to what search engine they preferred.
IId love to know why, but iid take a rough uninformed guess that because it seems more "Korean" to them may be one of the reasons for being more comfortable with it and liking it more. (I'm still sticking with my "Think Local" theory for now!)
Is there also any problems with the way google manages the language and encoding and ranking of Korean language sites so the results are less useful than in other places?
When I asked about google, people thought it didn't "look" as professional. ie, the sparce-ness wasn't the issue in a first impression sense (though it was a factor in thinking "why doesn't google provide more services?")...the actual DESIGN was. A good search engine? sure! Slick and cool? Not even close.
Remember that google is NOT considered a portal in Korea, per se. Daum and Naver are true portals. That is, Naver and Daum are community sites. And Koreas are truly gregarious and nationalistic people and very techno/web savy. Dating, chatting and game aspects (and the like) are the true draw to the Korean portal giants. Also, flash and other "advanced" web aspects don't scare them (broadband is everywhere) and they know how to adjust their screen resolution. So, most of Daum's and Navers traffic is NOT related to its search engine. And both do not rank as high in strict search engine respects. Thus, Daum and Naver customers use its search engine as "value added" features and as such, many use have come to use it as a default (why go to a non-community foreign made engine at that point?)
Thus, as chiyo said, the predominate reasons why google hasn't done as well....
1. timing (late comer....search engine? "me too! me too!") and
2. its just not very interesting (and yes, that also includes the idea that its not very "korean" in design or features). Thus, form wins over function? Perhaps.
It should be said, for strict searches, google has gained a strong "power user" following and is growing in popularity as such. Same reason as in US...its just a darn good search engine. So, people who don't need the other stuff and appreciate good results....have started using google.
Overall, "think local" is a good general rule in the Korean market.
