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Daum is the largest and most popular portal in Korea. According to the Korea Times [times.hankooki.com], Daum will upgrade its search capabilities to include Google within 30 days.
Daum boasts of 34 million registered subscribers with two million online communities. Daum users view an average of 400 million pages a day.
What effect this could have for those well positioned in Google is pretty obvious - mass traffic. The potential is as big as when Yahoo added Google.
``With this partnership, we will be able to increase Google's exposure in Korea, one of the most important internet markets in Asia,’’ Omid Kordestani said.
Owing to the sheer numbers alone, banner advertising (in Korean, of course) can be successful, provided you have a great product and local fulfillment.
I've lived in Korea for 3 years and have a Korean wife too, and would agree it is something of a powerhouse. The entire nation is committed to education like few other countries in the world, according to one recent UN study it has the best education for middle school students in the world, and they have a very strong sense of family values and national identity. For me Korea offers a quality of living I could have only dreamed about coming from London, England, and as I'm thinking about having a baby right now I'd go for Korea no problem.
What this means for site owners is that if you want Korean traffic you must make the effort to tailor your brand to the Korean market, show an awareness of their culture, develop a strong body of quality Korean content, and incorporate a high level of interactivity and customer service on your site because it's what they expect. The younger generation especially have video chatting, online gaming and so on as an everyday part of their life, and if you can portray yourself as relevant to them as well as imported-brand-name-cool, there's a huge market. They are also next to China, and can be used as a springboard to get into there as well.
Oh Pilsung Korea!
Jeremy
I am in Korea, work here, have an intimate perspective with both korean and US cultures and marketing and am very closely involved with the online market in Korea. (FYI)
toooo many points so for to go into all them...but here are few responses.
Language: English push IS increasing (and has been a part the curriculum for decades). But don't expect to be able to hold a conversation with the average person you meet on the street, though many people "higher level" (no offense) jobs, positions, have English (second language) speaking and reading competency (if not writing).
It is incontrovertible that Korean are used to SEEING english at least. And most of the population are completely comfortable reading basic/simple English. Further, most professionals read quite well and almost all tech-oriented ppl are quite reading fluent as most programming type books are in english (many probably have better grammar than USAmericans, in fact).
Credit Cards: I would make a distinction between "Asian" and "Korean" markets---that's like saying "the West" and lumping in Mexico (for example) with the USA...then saying, "I hear you can't drink the water." ;) Korea, Japan and China (the most internet "developed" of the Far East countries) are all significantly different in their banking and credit card issues and problems. South East Asia is fairly infamous for credit card scams (at least that's what they say out here in Korea), but that is probably a generalization as well. Certainly, credit card fraud didn't stop China's PPC Baidu.com, or Korea's PPC Zingu.com from becoming successful, profitable companies.
Bottom line is that credit cards are growing in popularity and as a market, Koreans have money and do use it extensively for online purchases. There are other issues that might be of issue like the fact that a form of direct deposit is quite prevailent here and further, there is a popular Korean specific credit card that does NOT work with basic foreign (international) forms (hence many Koreans often cannot use their credit cards for international sites). There IS high level of DELINQUENCY on credit card payments here (12%), but that has not stemmed projections for online spending growth overall.
In other words, NOT capitalizing on Korean customers/market because of credit fraud issues would be a huge loss of business opportunity.
SUCCESS FACTORS: In terms of selling (physical) products here via e-commerse, LostJames is dead on with the delivery thing. Marketing techniques and practices are still behind here (target marketing, direct marketing, DB/information based marketing, trade area analysis etc) and it is very nationalistic (sites need to "feel" Korean and be "slick" or get the boot).
That said, Koreans are GREAT at distribution (delivery, fullfillment etc). Most products can be delivered same day and as such, it is expected. Same goes for service. One way they out compete many brand names in techproducts with great service plans (and fast).
What this means for site owners is that if you want Korean traffic you must make the effort to tailor your brand to the Korean market, show an awareness of their culture, develop a strong body of quality Korean content, and incorporate a high level of interactivity and customer service on your site because it's what they expect. The younger generation especially have video chatting, online gaming and so on as an everyday part of their life, and if you can portray yourself as relevant to them as well as imported-brand-name-cool, there's a huge market. They are also next to China, and can be used as a springboard to get into there as well.
True. But since I agree Koreans also DO love brand names and do often read english quite well....so it is possible for largely english based sites with unique brand names to do well (assumig you don't have to "deliver" anything).
DAUM: surprising...no one mentioned the potential conflict this creates for OVERTURE. Did we forget that Daum just signed a 3 year exclusive contact with OVER for PPC sponsored links?
How this will play out in the future should be interesting. But I know that Overture Korea cant be happy about it. Also, Google has had problem in Korea because of their barebones, "non-Korean" feeling...as such this should be a significant step for Google.
Also, Daum is the biggest portal, but not the biggest search provider. Daum users are true community site "netizens", not search hounds, so to speak. However, Daum is completely restructuring their site to put more focus on their search giving their deals with Google and Overture (confirmed).
Lost more to say or thatI could go into...but that's all for now.
:D
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