Interview with Rick Kim of Cyworld

South Korea is known for having one of the widest distributions of broadband in the world. What people in the North America and Europe consider high speed access is slow by Korean standards. Further punctuating this, around 90% of 24-29 year olds are using a service called Cyworld, which has more traction than blogging. Instead of telling a new acquaintance your email address or screenname, you tell them the name of your mini hompy (pronounced home-pea), which is linked to your IM profile in a messenger service called NateOn. If you’ve seen the movie Oldboy, then you’ve seen the NateOn IM client. What makes all this fascinating is the way Cyworld has captured the attention of Koreans to the tune of $200k per day. With 90% market penetration in their primary Korean market, the company is looking to expand into the United States very soon. Chris talks to Rick Kim from Cyworld about the Korean version of their service and what they might have in store for the U.S. market in the very near future.

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