KoreaCrunch

In May 2006, I made Korean Web 2.0 Logo type gathering Web 2.0 startup service in Korea from 2005 to 2006. After that, I updated some of web services in my blog, but most of them in 2007 and 2008 weren't done my blank time. I searched new web services except big portals and gathered them again. Over 70 sites were made from 2007 to 2008. Compared with Silicon Valley, it's very small. I'll make a brief introduction for most of new services with above logos. You can see first logotype in May 2006 too.

I want to introduce some of English based web service made by brilliant Korean young startup. If new startup is appeared, I'll do again with numbers. FaceWorthy FaceWorthy is a social discovery network that allows you to upload photos and gain recognition. Show your best through photos and get people to vote for you. If you collect lots of votes, you get to access special features, and may even earn money. It is not designed for shy people but here for people who are passionate about expressing themselves and communicating with others. It is for people who have healthy desire to show who ...

I was at Future of Web Apps Conference in the last week, Miami Beach. It gave the chance to hear various technical workshops and latest web application technologies and examples from famous startups such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Pownce and WorePress. It was very good time for me. Also I attended BarCamp Miami and presented "Why not Web 2.0 in Korea?" that explains no boom-up status of Web 2.0 in Korea and why you check out Korea continually. | View | Upload your own Some people already knows Naver and Cyworld, but there is no famous successful startups although Korea has ...

The Japanese Softbank Ventures's Korean subsidiary media lab has operated an incubator to nuture young companies — offering them a small seed round of capital and helping through various steps of a so-called Litmus program since August, 2007. It’s the latest in a number of incubators that have popped up with a similar structure — reflecting a convergence around a best-practices approach, perhaps. There’s Y-Combinator, Seedcamp, and Techstars. Litmus is similar to these, only has more distinct steps in the move toward launch. When Litmus team receives a business plan, they review the b-plan thoroughly to assess potential and feasibility (hence ...

Cyworld is one of very unique social network services in the world. Before Cyworld, there were a success case, ILoveSchool based on networking school alumni in 1999. So trying of new startup for SNS has been very rare. Recently there are new startup services for SNS such as LinkNow.kr, Hutory.net and People2.co.kr. I reviewed these in detail, but I couldn't find unique things compared with abroad SNS services. The Web 2.0 trend makes a duplication of ideas and innovations too such as a example of Germany. Korea is not except, Me2day and PlayTalk was on debate who copied ideas and concept ...

A Korean famous blogger, Danny Kim started new blog TechnoKimchi to write on digital generation in Asia especially focused on Korea young people enjoyed wired life. His Korean blog has over 5,000 subscribers and popular to Web 2.0 mania. He studied in Cornell University and worked in Samsung SDS as a system engineer. Recently he took decisive action to quit his job and swings to full time blogger after his brave journey. He wrote why he starts new blog as followings: But, here's what's important. The gap between the young generation in East and West is closing. The reason is ...

Who does search the keyword of "Web 2.0" in the world? Surprisingly it was Korean according to a result of Google Trends in 2006. Of course, South Korea and Seoul were also highly ranked in this period. But, I thought it was bias caused by the result of rare ordinary people. (Google is just under 2% market share in here- most of technical guys only have used Google. In result, Google Trends might fix this bias after issuing of this fact. Recently I reviewed search trends of "Web 2.0", more surprisingly it was Taiwan and India. In recent period in 2006~2007, ...

It's one of episodes in Seoul Digital Forum. I think SDF was very expensive conference as much as Web 2.0 Summit, but it was based on free invitation only. Chris Anderson's speech was impressed me too, in fact I met him and heard his long tail speech in Ebay Developer Conference in last year. But this speech offered very good insights in media area specially old media and advertisement market. You can watch a clip of this speech via Youtube In speech, I was very impressed on marketing strategy of Wired.com via 1) Reach (Generate traffic by ...