Futurize Korea

Chang Kim of Web 2.0 Asia gave a presentation last week to the Forum Net Explorateur conference in Paris about Korean web innovations:

It's always good to be called an innovator, but as an insider, I feel Korea isn't as innovative as it used to be 10 years ago. Many Korean web industry experts express their worries that the sweeping startup passion that existed before doesn't seem to be there any more in Korea.

A recent editorial from the Korea IT Times on the politics of comparisons for conventions and exhibitions held in Korea:

Reporters all over the country are fixated on comparing Korea to other countries, and Korea's supposed standing in the global community. This is most easily illustrated in the way the Korean media reports on its own expos and conventions. And, like most obsessions, this one also harms more than it helps.

TechCrunch has more details on MySpace’s closing of their Seoul office, here's a quote from MySpace’s statement on the closure:

Since opening MySpace in Korea we have realized many successes and gained invaluable insight into the local market. Our team created a locally relevant and unique experience for the Korean community and built awareness for the value of open platforms across the market for developers.

The Korea Times finds sceptics to the recent announcement from the Korean government to increase the speed of their broadband and wireless networks:

But industry watchers wonder whether policymakers are overselling their initiatives to telecommunications companies, who are asked to finance the new plan despite having yet to gain from earlier investment in ``next big things.''

The National Internet Development Agency of Korea (NIDA) announced this past December they reached a milestone with more than one million registrations for the .kr top-level domain:

Korea introduced “.kr” in 1993, and the domain was used by 61,000 Web sites in the first year.

As of Dec. 20 this year, 1,002,429 Web sites, a 7.7 percent increase from a year ago, use the domain name.