Two years ago, Google acquired a Korean startup, TNC with Textcube.com, open source based blogging platform similar with Wordpress.com. After the announcement of acquisition, there were two prospects recovering local search power with blogging service and giving synergy effects to blogger.com.

But, Google noticed Textcube.com will be integrated to Blogger soon. Because two sites are completely different, in fact, it means that Textcube.com will be closed and user’s data must be migrated to Blogger.com.

Textcube.com was popular growing blogger platform and had many alpha bloggers in Korea. So there were over 200 comments and trackbacks and most of them were negative to Google’s unfaithful direction.

We have made innovative functions of Textcube.com and tried to move them to Blogger. For example, we played important part to make Blogger Template Desinger…. It is good example to contribute Blogger’s innovation and we want to offer efficient and useful services by concentrating on Blogger only… For smooth intergration, a new registartion of Textcube.com is closed in right now.

In fact, I guessed Textcube will be Google’s dead ducks as like Dodgeball, Jaiku and Zingku. But, many alpha bloggers supported Google’s decision and Textcube’s internalization because its platform is very excellent. Now they were disappointed and move to another services. (Actually Daum’s Tistory supports TTXML format and Textcube users can move their data to Tistory.)

It became another proof that Google is not successful to grow social communication and content-generating after buying services. The Web is not only composed by “information”, which it has been made by human and “communication” called by the media power is one of important part of Web. I think it is the most weak point of Google.

At last, half a million Apple iPhones have sold in Korea by the end of this month. The phones were an instant hit as soon as they belatedly hit the Korean market on Nov. 28, 2009 and sales remain at some 4,000 a day. The phones sold over 500,000 in only seven countries including the US, Germany, France and Japan. Apple is reportedly surprised at how fast the iPhone is selling in Korea.

People believes iPhone sales will slow down with the launch of new smartphones like Samsung’s Android Phone but still expects the total number sold to reach 1 million this year. Because many people are waiting for new iPhone 4G device in June.

Ironically Safari users in Korea were increased about 10 times compared with 6 month before. The most Korean online news service, Media Daum reported web browser share: IE6 57.1%(-7.8%), IE8 21.2%(+12.9%), IE7 16.8%(-3.01%), Safari 2.54%(+2.15%), Mozilla Firefox 1.2%(+0.01%) and Google Chrome 0.96%(+0.34%). The number of Safari users caught up with Firefox’s and it became #2 web browser in Korea.

The move comes amid brewing competition between Google and NHN, Korea’s top internet search service, in the fast-growing mobile market in iPhones and Android phones. The government telecom regulator is considering requiring other handset makers and mobile operators to add Korean search services as options other than Google. Google is overshadowed by NHN’s Naver in the Korean market but is poised to catch up in the mobile arena on the back of the popularity of smartphones featuring it as the default search engine.

In addition, the government plans to adopt standard software to enable required security measures on iPhone and Android phone for mobile banking services. However, critics claim that the decision to pick a specific technology to control transactions over different mobile platforms is an ill-advised move, as it may eventually expose mobile users to a similar, shaky security environment experienced by computer users in the Microsoft-dominated desktop world.

MindTouch has developed a top 20 list of the most powerful voices in open-source, compiled using Twitter and other sources.

Most of the people on the list will be of no surprise to veterans of the open-source world. Notables include Tim O’Reilly, Chris Messina and Jonathan Schwartz. But, surprisingly I was listed in there as rank of 17th.

In fact, it doesn’t mean that I’m the 17th famous person in open source industry. This survey is more about broadcast capability and less about influence and MindTouch already published the most influential in Open Source 2009 back in October. I think the individuals in the list carry a big megaphone and spread words with regular sharing information.

As a local person, I didn’t give an impact in the global world, but my effort has focused on Korean web industry based on the sprites of open source and open web with Mozilla’s mission. I humbled to be included in this list and thank you for my subscribers of over 1,000 in Koreacrunch and over 28,000 in Channy’s Blog as well as over 4,900 Twitter followers.

Before reading! There is no need to move Buzz to Twitter. After activating Buzz in Gmail, it seems almost a clone of FriendFeed. Google designed Buzz as an integrator of social streams. I guess you add just one stream FriendFeed to Buzz.

Today Google released Google Buzz, the Gmail based social messaging service. I think it’s quite fun and smart application and useful to share information within Gmail. But, how to move messages of Google Buzz in public to Twitter automatically?

There is a solution by Google Buzz APIs. It offered a feed for syndication, but the message was included in content area. So I made new RSS feed using a Yahoo! Pipes to transfer them to FriendFeed or Twitter. If you wan to do and have Google profile, the account of FriendFeed and Twitter, you can do this by as following steps.

1. Make a your new feed
You can go my pipe of Google Buzz Stream and input your Google account of your Buzz. If you click “Get as RSS”, you may get new RSS feed as a format of http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=d72af57d3ed302585a00bd9b67e850d6&_render=rss&id=googleid.

2. Add Custom RSS into FriendFeed
You can add Buzz messages to your FriendFeed stream by setting Custom RSS in services preference. If you do that, you can see Buzz messages in your FriendFeed.

3. Add Twitter publishing in FriendFeed
If you want to Buzz messages to publish into Twitter, you can add CustomRSS of Buzz in Advanced Twitter Settings.

Of course, Google Buzz is not limited in 140 characters, but you can show your status from Google to Twitter easily using open standards technology. Enjoy Google Buzz!

At last, iPhone officially launched in Korea on Nov. 28th, 2009. iPhone consumers lined up at midnight to be among the first in the country to get their hands on it in front of launching event place.

Hundreds of people began to stand in line from midnight in front of Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, waiting until 2 p.m. to get their iPhones — made available only to 1,000 people who raffled online for early purchases.

Some 60,000 people who made online preorders over the past week will have their iPhones delivered starting Saturday, said KT, South Korea’s second largest mobile carrier.

KT is so far the only mobile carrier in the country to clinch a deal with Apple to sell iPhones and related mobile services.

iPhones will be available to other buyers at KT shops starting Dec. 1th, the mobile carrier said. The 32-gigabyte iPhone 3GS costs US$341 for customers who subscribe with a monthly service fee of US$38 with 500MB data and 200 min free calling plan. Of course various optional plan were offered too.

As followings are pictures of scenes in launching day.

It was globally released Windows 7, the new operation system of Microsoft On Oct. 22th. There were several funny episode to do.

Linux’s Celebration for Windows 7 in Japan
Microsoft tried to torpedo the success of the Japan Linux Symposium by launching their Windows 7 product that same day. They even had setup a big promotion booth across the street from the conference center.

During a break, Linus Tobalds and Chris Schlaeger decided to make some fun of Microsoft and dragged him over there. When they arrived there, Linus was sold immediately on the product as you can see in the picture. At least that’s what the sales guy thought. He obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. But in the end Linus surprisingly did not buy a copy. Wise man!

Korean 777 Bloggers got promotional Window 7
In Korea, there was Windows 7 release party with 777 bloggers hosted by Microsoft Korea. Many bloggers requested to join there because it promised to give free Windows7 Ultimate. Most of bloggers thought “Windows 7″ box for sale.

But, it is just promotional Disc. written in not for resale and also 32bit only English version.

It was honest good, but got feeling of deceived.

Windows 7 Whopper with 7 patties
The Windows 7 Whopper consist of seven stacked beef patties that measure over 5 inches in height, and the whole thing costs an appropriate ¥777 (or $8.55). It’s available for seven days only, completing the run of sevens.

There was popular news on top of Techmeme, but it’s hard to eat it despite of employee Microsoft Japan.

Still demo ghost in Japan?
On demonstration of Windows 7 touch function, Windows 7 was frozen. There’s no need for a translation here. A fail this epic speaks for itself and brings back fond memories of the classic Windows 98 fail. Enjoy. The laughs from the TV hosts are the best part IMHO.

Some people replied the monitor is made in China, but it’s still on demo ghost of the classic Windows 98 fail in Japan.

Windows 7 launched on Macbook Pro?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on NBC Today Show that is a morning news and entertainment program that airs on NBC, a big TV network here) to unveil “>Windows 7 on MacBook Pro in the background.

Adobe Photoshop is common marketing language in global as well as China.

Anyway, congratulation Windows 7 release!

I have engaged Northeast Asia Open Source Software promotion Forum was formed by China, Korea and Japan governments and regional organizations for Open source software promotion. Because there were many issues of web interoperability in north east Asia, it have been hard to promote open source web browsers based on as like Gecko or Webkit engine.

I and my colleagues in web standards have been activities of NEAOSS working group 3 for 3 years and we closed our activities and summarized the status of China, Japan and Korea.

As following presentation was presented in 8th NEAOSS Forum in Tokyo.

The Status Of Web Interoperability And Activities In China, Japan And Korea

Of course, many issues still were solved yet as like Active-control based internet banking and e-commerce sites. But, for 3 years, many good signals were produced on three countries.

As following is the photo of Korean members: Hyeonseok Shin (Opera Software Korea), Channy Yun (Daum) and Hoon Cho (Dibidib)

Daum Communications Corp. decided to give iPhone 3GS to all employees as a gift. Daum.net is 2nd internet portal site and owner of Lycos.com in US.

Of course, iPhone hasn’t yet launched in South Korea. If it is released, this plan will be processed. Its plan includes 2 years guaranteed data plan. It was very big news in IT media and it about to make a big splash with its employees. As soon as iPhone launches, Daum plans to give away the highest spec iPhone 3GS to all of its employees (appx 1,000).

Daum already launched two applications for video-sharing and map services on Apple’s App Store and aggressively approached mobile web business, so all employees must be good at smartphone life as like iPhone.