« podcasting: connecting directly via naming and practice |
Main
| WSJ.com: The day the email died »
June 1, 2005
The Korean Exception
Posted by Ross Mayfield
Joi highlights to the Korean exception, where the most wired country on the planet has developed social software traction through centralized models like OhMyNews and Hompy (derivative homepages). This is in stark contrast to decentralized blogging that leverages open standards, which is all the rage in some larger countries like the US, France (no!) and the UK.
While many factors contribute to consumer blog adoption (broadband, regulation, culture, social networks, celebrity and mass media to name a few), my sense is that smaller countries like Korea will trend towards centralized models. Language barriers to existing network effects, the simplicity of a single location, and cultivation of a community within bounds all contribute to my generalization. In the absence of connections, nodes are state attractors.
Comments (6)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: social software
- RELATED ENTRIES
- › Spolsky on Blog Comments: Scale matters
- › "The internet's output is data, but its product is freedom"
- › Andrew Keen: Rescuing 'Luddite' from the Luddites
- › knowledge access as a public good
- › viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
- › Gorman, redux: The Siren Song of the Internet
- › Mis-understanding Fred Wilson's 'Age and Entrepreneurship' argument
- › The Future Belongs to Those Who Take The Present For Granted: A return to Fred Wilson's "age question"
1. Boris Anthony on June 1, 2005 9:46 PM writes...
Woah woah woah! "Exception"? I propose we await proof that these very same characteristics don't exist, or develop, elsewhere before throwing out the baby with the bathwater! For all we know Belgium may have a thriving Hompy culture too! ;)
So South Korea has bloggers and Hompies. A first step would be to look for similar development is neighboring countries...
Permalink to Comment2. Roi Autrey on June 1, 2005 9:51 PM writes...
You can't discount korean xenophobia, distrust of foriegners and a trauma-feuled national self-absorption either! But more power to them... at least they love their "ubiquitious well-being digital" (three of the most recent buzzwords to be imported into the South Korean vernacular in recent years).
Permalink to Comment3. helge on June 2, 2005 4:11 AM writes...
you name france as example of a "large country" whereas korea is a "smaller country". france has a population of 63m, korea has 46m. if you take into account that korea is probably the country with the largest % of online-population it's hardly "smaller" than france.
Permalink to Comment4. neilwd on June 2, 2005 6:13 AM writes...
Roi is on the right track here. The other related and significant factor is the nature of telecoms & ISP supply in Korea. For a long time these things have been heavily influenced by the Government as national "competitive differentiators" - there's been a long running "arms race" in this broad area with Japan for 10 years at least. Korean government-business interests have explicitly favoured innovation over openness for a long time and the result is very advanced, but closed, communities.
Permalink to Comment5. Chad Manney on June 2, 2005 2:11 PM writes...
You have a good point about the size of the community. I wonder what you think about how services like ours factor into the centralized vs. decentralized argument. We take decentralized blogs and filter the right content through to the user, thus making it personalized...if not centralized.
I'm talking about www.infobeing.net.
Chad
Permalink to Comment6. Ben Hyde on June 4, 2005 1:44 PM writes...
Your list of insta-theories(tm) is missing 'path-dependencies,' which would be my first guess.
Nations that build out an industry first tend to be less concentrated than those that follow. It's a bit like asking why we have lots of kinds of cola here, but other nations don't.
Most of the blog population in the US is hosted on just a small handful of services. It's a very concentrated industry, all ready. I'm not sure if we are more or less centralized than other nations. data? some: http://www.dijest.com/bc/2004/08/blogger-livejournal-and-typepad-have.html
It's always fun to back solve from outcomes to national character. Fun is it's own validation.
Permalink to Comment