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Korea in the digital vanguard

by Kevin (Kilmo) Kang, Korea

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Can Google succeed in Korea?

Jan 26, 2008 11:31

A few days back, Google Korea launched youtube.co.kr fully converted to the Korean icons and language, but many people think this will not be powerful as they hope. Let's check out their status in the Korean market.

Google has had a tough time in Korea since it started Korean services for the market. It launched a new interface on its main page. This is a very unusual case by Google considering its previous work styles.

However, even if it modified its main page for greater convenience to Korean users, it still needed to be integrated with the various sections. This is generating many kinds of critical issues in Korea by a powerful search engine. I'm not sure whether one should say powerful or critical issues for their search results.

The Korean market has four top search engines based on community sites, Naver, Daum, Yahoo Korea, Empas. Currently, Naver is doing a great job in Korea and the market share is also like what Google is in the global market.

Naver has a great service search tool called "jisik-in" It's like a knowledge pool created by all Naver users. One user asks for sudden cases and the other user answers for that. This kind of data has been gathered for quite a few years and their database is full of answers. Actually this idea was started by Empas but it lost the chance to boom like Naver did.

Well, I heard Google has also started to prepare similar conceptual services for the global markets. See, Google is a global company and has to think of English bases from the beginning. But Korea has its own language and those local search engines have good data in Korean.

Also, Daum has started to focus on a UCC search engine which has the same concept as "jisik-in", but all answers will come out from UCC. Not too bad. This service has been doing a unique job among other local competitors.

Of course, all search engines providing community services such as email account, online shopping, news, blog, community, stocks, travel... etc. All these services are not easily to done by Google Korea.

Let's check out what the necessary things are that Google requires to succeed in Korea.

1. Korean content (modified and specialized)
Koreans are now very familiar with search results that local search engines generate by their style. Like 1 to 5 categories. Results from site, "Jisik-in", blogs, cafes (community), news, Webpages, UCC, photos.

You can choose one of the categories from the first results or you already have what you want in the first results, too.

This is a very convenient service once you get used to it. Well, I found sometimes that this takes a while to find what I really need in English. So I go to Google.com to find answers, but most Koreans like this kind of result. Some people say Google's result is too simple.

Google may have great content in English but not in Korean. Korean content definitely adds competition with the local search engines. The best thing will be a merger and acquisition with one of the Korean search engines, I guess.

I think Google has kept its pattern and result styles to be quicker and faster on results and researches in all kinds of Internet environments. But this may holding it back since Korea has the world's best Internet connection with high speed for most of the homes. With this environment, local search sites keep increasing new services. Even if a file is heavy to download, this isn't an issue for customers in Korea.

2. Hard to get insight service even if official branch exists in Korea, but most important work need to be done through US HQ and it takes a while. Currently, we are having a few key issues on this.

Google search results are so powerful in discovering all personal information such as "personal IDs", "encrypted hiring results", and other data based on a person's name.

Korean sites require inputting their unique personal ID when they register any site to avoid double registering or making fake IDs. However, Google just lists thousands of those personal IDs with names when you are typing personal IDs from Google.com earlier. It was issued in Korea and government request was for Google to remove those results. However, such cases take a month or years to revise since most of revision requires getting HQ's approval or done from the side not at the Korean branch.

I think Google Korea should have some independent revision for Korean search results based on our culture. It needs to learn from other competitor services if Google wants to create and appeal to Korea. We are different and we do have unique services, but the key thing is whether Koreans want it or not in the first place.

Post will be continued in Part 2

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juniper

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juniper says...
Google still rules in the search space worldwide. But it's getting tougher for the company to keep its throne. A study by comScore concedes that rivals in China and South Korea have become powerhouses in their respective countries.

Here's something from comScore vice president of international markets Bob Ivins. "Seeing Asian search engines like China's Baidu.com and (South) Korea's NHN ranked alongside Google and Yahoo underscores the fact that search has become a truly global phenomenon."

Feb 29, 2008 11:20

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About Kevin (Kilmo) Kang

Kevin (Kilmo) Kang is a self-professed IT-savvy guy who's been having the time of his life making tech deals with new business partners in the Asia-Pacific areas. Like every Korean, he's gadget-crazy and is glad he lives in a country with one of the fastest-growing tech markets in the world. His taste for international work, however, arose from a nine-year stay in New Zealand where he fortunately made more friends than there are sheep.