Cyworld and Korean youth

Wanting to psychologically dissect and see Korean youth activities, just put the lens on the website Cyworld - Korea's number one website with about 20 million members (more than 1/3 of the Korean population) but 90 % of them are young people of average age 20. 'Cy' in Korean means 'relationship' and Cyworld is where young people build relationships, express thinking, express mood , exchange information, share emotions, open arms to receive friends at the same time to express their own ego .

For 18-year-old Lee Yu-jin, Osan University freshman, Cyworld is a special world. This graphic student brought all her design and many school articles to Cyworld. Lee Yu-jin's mini homepage also has an 'album' that captures friends, relatives and parties.

Great interior

Lee Yu-jin blogged (daily diary) on Cyworld as well as chatting with his boyfriend. She got to know many new friends. In essence (creating community connections at the time of expressing me), Cyworld is similar to MySpace in the US (the sixth most popular English community network in the world and the third in the US) but it's better in form. The homepage is three-dimensional and users can design their own 'interior' for the mini homepage just like in a real home.

There will be one or more guests going through 'my house' so users have to take care to decorate their own home page (called 'minihompy') . Not only are there many utilities that attract young people? chat, international phone ., users can access Cyworld from mobile phones.

Growing stronger since being bought by SK Telecom (Korea's largest wireless service provider) in 2003 for $ 8.5 million, Cyworld has become a phenomenon not only socially but also economically. Although the use of Cyworld is free, members have to pay real money when buying items for their personal home page. They exchange real money (via credit card) to get virtual money (called dotori).

In 2005, SK Communications (SK Telecom branch) achieved a profit of US $ 25 million from sales of US $ 160 million, half of which is sales through virtual currency dotori. On average, daily transactions on Cyworld are about US $ 300,000, or more than US $ 7 / person / year (compared to US $ 2.17 / person / year for MySpace). That means Korean youth spend tens of millions of dollars (real money) every year while living in the Cyworld world.

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'Minihompy' on Cyworld

Cyworld's 24-hour life is always lively and exciting. Every day, there are about 6.2 million photos uploaded to Cyworld (most from mobile phones)! 31-year-old computer engineer Kim Joon said he used Cyworld to "store" his family album and tomorrow, for example, 20 years later, his son (now one year old) can review every milestone Its maturity from Cyworld!

That's what SK Telecom wants. The more personal information you store on Cyworld, the more loyal users are with this site. SK Telecom saves all users' birthdays and notifies in advance to 'cybuddy' (acquaintances from Cyworld) to prepare to congratulate.

How happy? You can send e-cards or digital music, for 0.5-9 USD. There is also a search box on Cyworld. Just type the name, birthday and gender or e-mail address, Cyworld will help find long-term acquaintances who haven't met (of course, that person must also be a Cyworld member). In many cases, members can earn money through Cyworld.

Silver

After giving recipes to Cyworld with favorite food photos, Kim Hyoung-gon was invited to write a culinary handbook! 31-year-old Kang Hee-jae even dared to quit his job and open a website to buy and sell online after her collection of dolls and clothes on the Cyworld attracted 2.7 million visitors and many people ask to buy.

Of course, part of me, Cyworld has a lot of silver. They sell 6 million songs a month (becoming one of the most successful digital music stores today) and earn a lot from mobile phone service. There are 2.6 million customers registered to access Cyworld from mobile phones (registration does not charge but access must be paid).

Cyworld also increased revenue thanks to advertising on the homepage interface. At the mini home page (of each member), advertising is not allowed, but many businesses (currently around 30,000) have set up mini sites to promote them.

The rival of MySpace

After the campaign to penetrate China and Japan, in August 2006, Cyworld attacked the United States.This event has attracted the attention of the press in particular and the online entertainment industry business in general.

Business Week reported that Cyworld could crush rival MySpace on its home page.

Success Cyworld shows many things. From an economic point of view, it is the quick capture of the era of 'web 2.0' (web version 2.0), a popular term now indicating the next explosion of the Internet.

From a social perspective, it is about making the most of digital coordination. In addition, Cyworld also showed that South Korea continues to win heavily on the cultural export front.

And that is really worth mentioning when referring to the internal potential in protecting and developing indigenous cultures in the era of integration.

Manh Kim