From Korea’s social media news:
- In its 2010 Hot Issues, ZDNet Korea heralds the “scary” levels of growth Facebook has enjoyed in Korea this year. Last month, according to research agency Korean Click, Facebook had almost 6.7 million visitors in Korea, who stayed for an average of 37.3 minutes, and viewed a total of 500 million pages. Of the domestic SNS sites, only Cyworld could match that.As if that weren’t tough enough for local SNS companies, Facebook has launched an all-out offensive to crack the Korean market. Last June, Facebook entered a deal with KT to include the SNS service on regular mobile phones too, while in July, the SNS giant showed off an “open market” application all in Korean. More recently, Facebook also struck a deal with the LG Uplus carrier to exempt users from any data charges incurred while using Facebook on the Oz Generation mobile internet service.While domestic SNS sites have been scrambling to launch or upgrade their own “social services,” they have largely been falling short so far. They have been falling further behind in terms of page views and traffic, and because they’re benchmarking Facebook, many have yet to develop a clear identity.And with Twitter set to open a Korean office next year, things are set to get even tougher for Korea’s own SNS developers.
- Also on ZDNet, the site reveals which search terms have been most popular with netizens this year.
Of no surprise to anyone, Kim Yu-na, American Idol clone Superstar K, Park Ji-sung and Girls’ Generation are all in there (as is Twitter!). For those unfamiliar with them, No 1 and No 2 are smash hit dramas Baker King, Kim Tak Goo and Sungkyungwan Scandal.
- Bloter reports on yet another new development in Korea’s social commerce realm, which seems to be growing, mutating and innovating almost by the minute.This time, it’s a kind of CSR campaign by Korea’s biggest social commerce site, Ticket Monster (or Timon [티몬], as it’s increasingly known). Called 소셜 기부 (somewhat awkwardly renamed “So speCial Give” in English), the campaign aims to overcome the difficulties small- and mid-sized companies (such as Timon) and socially-conscious enterprises face in conducting CSR: namely, already wafer-thin margins and high-production costs.To counter these problems, the So speCial Give campaign will see Timon selling goods from social enterprises at a 25 percent markdown (rather than the usual 50 percent) while also allowing said enterprises to use Timon’s services commission-free.The first such campaign took place from December 10 to 12, and saw Beautiful Coffee, a Korean fair-trade organisation, offering “fair hot chocolate” for 25 percent off. Future campaigns will involve Beautiful Coffee’s sister company Beautiful Store (a string of charitable shops around Seoul), andWe Can, a charity for disabled people, who will be making cookies to raise funds.
- On a similar note, Daum has extended its annual “Make Korea’s Winter Warm Campaign” onto mobile devices.
- Run since 2005, Daum’s flagship CSR campaign, in ZDNet’s somewhat apocalyptic turn of phrase, aims to have participants “glance back at your estranged neighbours, and warm up a society that seems to have been left barren by [economic] stagnation.”From this year, whenever someone checks in to the “donations of love” section via Daum’s location-based service Daum Place, or snaps the QR code on the Digital Views installed on stations on subway lines No. 1 to 4, Daum will donate 1,000 won to charity.
