YouTube Launches in Korea
2008/01/23 19:49Google finally launched their localized Korean YouTube site with a press conference in Seoul on Wednesday:
The Korean YouTube site faces a daunting mission in competing against locally grown services from Daum, Pandora TV and Afreeca. Tricky censorship regulations and skeptical sentiment toward foreign Internet firms will also become a hurdle to success for the U.S.-based site in Korea.
``Korea has one of the fastest IT infrastructure in the world and the broadband penetration here is very high so YouTube will be able to fill the demand for videos,'' Sakina Arsiwala, the international manager of YouTube, said during a press conference in the Hotel Shilla in Seoul.
The Korean YouTube site is accessible at: http://kr.youtube.com/
YouTube Korea has also signed on several local media companies to provide content including: Castnet, CJ Media, Itonic, Joong-Ang Cable, JYP Entertainment, SM Online and TU Media.
Interestingly, I found some video of the YouTube press conference on TagStory:
Other videos:
Video greeting from YouTube's co-founder and CTO Steve Chen on the launch of YouTube Korea
Video of Q&A with Sakina Arsiwala: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
Q&A with some notable Korean YouTube users including Jeong-hyun "funtwo" Lim who gained popularity playing Pachelbel's Canon on his electric guitar and Jin-woo Shin of "Free Hugs in Korea".
