Increased unemployment heavily contributed to the rise of massive
multiplayer gaming and online social networking.

The government invested heavily in telecoms networks during the
recession following the Asian economic crisis of the late 90s
gambling as part of a wider strategic shift South Korea's attention
towards the global economy and become an electronics powerhouse.

Population density meant that higher speed services could be delivered
to more people at a cheaper cost via PC Baangs (internet cafes).
However, it was not high speed connections that boosted the online
gaming market. In fact, increased unemployment heavily contributed to
the widespread adoption of massive multiplayer gaming and online
social networking. South Korea boasts a highly educated young
population with 98% of the population attending university, but with
fewer full time jobs after graduation, job sharing gave provided
enough money to spend the rest of the time at PC Baangs.

So, contrary to what other commentators have been saying about social
media losing it's appeal in economic hard times, perhaps those of us
in the online gaming and social media space should remain hopeful
during the current recession.

South Korea Startups update

Follow the links below to see the extended video interviews with
Nuriensoft, Direct Media & KT (via Intruders.tv - HD format)

South
Korea: Nurien's Unfair Advantage

South
Korea: Sean Lee & Kang-Min Ahn demo Mobile TV service.

South
Korea: Dr Sanku Jo - KT's Web 2.0 Evangelist discusses the cultural
shift required for Korea Telecomms industry.

Special mention about Zapr which
launched at the end of last year after i had left Seoul. This is a
startup launched from out of China by Korean entrepreneur Dai-Kyu Kim
(pictured). Zapr allows you to create a one to one peer to peer
network so that files can be shared quickly and easily. It's ideal for
sharing large photos and videos between your grandparents and other
family members who are not web savvy enough to use social networks or
FTP sites. All you do is create a folder and on your hard drive, add
the content you want and Zapr renders it as web page for them to
download via a link. I use it to share large photo files from my trip
with friends in Japan and Korea as it is quicker than sending them via
email and means they can use the high quality images. For a complete
review checkout webworker
daily.

Posted by jc1000000