Cynthia Munoz
Published: November 22, 2006
Every morning a girl in English class heads straight to a computer, logs in to her <b><a href=”http://www.myspace.com”>Myspace</a></b> and chats away, messaging others, even while the teacher is lecturing.
A lot of students have fallen victim to the Myspace trance or have been mesmerized by Myspace’s subliminal messages encrypted deep within its html codes. If you have not fallen for the fad, you have at least witnessed the effects that Myspace’s Internet coding has had on friends, siblings, parents, co-workers, even television and radio.
But this could all be coming to a halt.
In late August 2006, a South Korean Internet/cellular monopoly called <b><a href=”http://us.cyworld.com/main/index.php”>”Cyworld”</a></b> hit the U.S. market and plans to sneak in to our hard drives and eventually take over our computers like an AOL virus.
According to Erick Schonfeld in the August 2006 Edition of Business 2.0, “Cy-world,” meaning relationship world in Korean, is Korea’s most popular social network: “a strange blend of Blogger, Flickr and includes videogame-like avatars” and cellular compatibilities that keeps the country moving forward.
“There are [more than] 18 million Cyworld members, or more than a third of the country’s entire population,” said Schonfeld. “Ninety percent of all Koreans in their 20s have signed up. That makes Cyworld’s per capita penetration in South Korea greater than that of Myspace in the U.S.”
Compared to Myspace’s heavy advertising and free networking and customization, Cyworld’s ad-free marketing is a free-not-so-free network.
“There’s relatively little advertising and a whole lot of [virtual] marketing,” Schonfeld said. “The bulk of Cyworld revenue comes from the sale of virtual items.”
Cyworld’s virtual items are avatar-like people, clothing, backgrounds, toys, food, and whatever else that can fill the virtual mini-home.
The only setback is that these items cost “acorns” – virtual money – that can be bought in bulk.
According to Business 2.0, Ji-Young Park, Cyworld’s chief service planner, “to minimize the repulsion of paying for them,” virtual items are cheap, normally less than $1, and the site usually throws in loads of [acorns] when you first sign up.
“A well appointed mini-room [reflects] your social standing,” said Park. “Users who [do not] decorate are considered boring.”
With the sale of virtual items, Cyworld makes a revenue of $300,000 a day, or $7 per person per year, where “ad heavy Myspace makes an estimated $2.17 per user per year,” Schonfeld said.
There are so many free social networks out there: Myspace, <b><a href=”http://www.facebook.com/”>Facebook</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://www.friendster.com/”>Friendster</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://hi5.com/”>Hi5</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://spaces.live.com/”>MSN Spaces</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://multiply.com/”>Multiply</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://tagworld.com/-/Main.aspx”>Tag World</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://florida.tribe.net/welcome”>Tribe.Net</a></b>, <b><a href=”http://360.yahoo.com/login.html?.done=http%3A%2F%2F360.yahoo.com%2F&.src=360″>Yahoo 360ø</a></b>, and any other group you can create yourself. Why on earth would Americans want to pay?
“I have so many accounts,” said PJC student Carlus Page. “I don’t need another one. I don’t even look at some of the accounts I already have.”
Joe M., a random commentary provider for gigaom.com, posted that since there are so many free sites, the payment approach shouldn’t even be questioned when creating a site.
“Cyworld only offers their items for cute acorns. C’mon, all the sites offer free codes,” said Joe M. “You Tube is another major market force in distributing their codes free for distribution to Myspace profiles, blogs, and anywhere else.”
In Business 2.0, Hyun Oh Yoo, SK Communications’ CEO (division of SK Telecom- Korea’s largest wireless carrier and parent company to Cyworld) points out that with a quality system Americans will break down into paying for accessories because the fad will be in and their friends will influence them.
“There are so many social networking services in the U.S.” said Yoo, “but their quality is not as high as Cyworld.”
Joe M., perhaps the same random commentator for gigaom.com, posted on Businessweek.com that another good reason why Americans wouldn’t fall for Cyworld’s new gimmick is because Americans want diversity and the freedom to express themselves the way they wish.
“Myspace may be terrible technically and not appeal to the geek “technorati” in elegance, but it is King with users – and it’s easy to see why: FREEDOM,” said Joe M.
“The fundamental problem is diversity with the Cyworld approach. Myspace has created a huge ecosystem of companies with different layout, graphic, video, music etc. to customize your profile.”
Another popular recreation today’s society enjoys is picture-phone uploading. Everyone wants to take pictures. Whether it’s of their family, their food, or their feet, Cyworld offers limitless space for photo storage. In fact, according to an article by Moon Ihlwan on <a href=”http://www.businessweek.com/”>Business Week Online</a>, picture-phone uploads are a top cellular revenue for SK Communications.
“An average of 6.2 million photos are uploaded to Cyworld each day, many of them directly from cell phones,” said Ihlwan.
“There are so many features,” said PJC student Ricky Di. “Everyone will probably jump on the bandwagon once they give up on Myspace.”
Cyworld features picture-phone uploading, blogging, a digital drawing pad, mini-home, min-clubs, digital store, music, guestbook, and a “mini-me” avatar that can travel to a friend’s page.
“It’s really cool,” said Daniel Lovett, a PJC student, who was actually dressing his “mini-me” at the time. “There are so many clothes, I love it!”
Joe M. remains confident that Cyworld may not have a place in the U.S.
“Other social networks will grow, but it will be based on leveraging all the FREE decoration and enhancement codes already out there. Not by building a closed walled community and trying to trick users with cutesy garbage into paying for a poorer choice of items,” said Joe M.
Cyworld has a long way ahead of it, and although its conversion to the U.S. may be slow and a bit rocky and questionable, there is no doubt that it will spread like communicable disease. One person will cough the message to a friend, and they will sneeze it out to the next.