As following is Richard MacManus’s commnet for Web 2.0 in Korea.

When it comes to broadband and wireless technologies, Korea is far ahead of the rest of the world. Check out these figures from Chief Executive magazine (April 2004):

Of the nearly 16 million Korean households, 78 percent now have a broadband connection—or more than four times the home broadband penetration rate of North America.”

Not only is broadband penetration high, but the speeds are very fast (”on average four times faster” than in the US) and broadband services are well-used by Korean people.

One of my Korean readers, Taewoo Danny Kim, pointed out some popular Korean web services in a recent comment on Read/Write Web. He mentioned Cyworld (a social networking site - good write-up here), bugsmusic (a music streaming service) and Ohmynews (the world’s premier citizen journalism website). Of Cyworld, Danny said it’s extremely popular with Korean teenagers and is superior to the likes of Orkut and Friendster “when it comes to UI and the range of functions provided”.

Other Korea Web 2.0 links:
- Danny’s blog, which I understand is the equivalent of Read/Write Web in the Korean language, in terms of its focus on Web 2.0.
- Broadband: Lessons from South Korea
- Wired: Seoul of a New Machine
- TechDirt: Korea, The Test Bed
- Marc Canter: “I’m becoming a Korea-phile.”