Random Musings

ok - i hope i do not get skewered for this posts…

one of the companies I met while in Korea was TNC - a Korean startup which offers an open source blogging platform called textcube (links in Korean). at the moment, they have not launched their hosted version, but i got to play with their downloadable version while i was in korea. after playing with their demo and getting a sample acct, i think it is actually better than wordpress and other US blogging tools.  but, given the head start that wordpress has and the fact that WP has such a large, dedicated community, it may be very hard for this company to make inroads in the english language market.

A few of the advantages:

• cleaner dashboard
• easier to integrate videos, photos and podcasts into post.  they have this incredible drag and drop feature which makes it super easy to bulk add photos, format the text around images, create slide shows, resize images, etc. the simplicity is beautiful.
• intuitive comment tracking system - structured like an email inbox, i think their comment UI system will make it easier for novice users to become comfortable with interaction with readers and other blogs via comments.
• staff of maybe 15 programmers who are dedicated to improving the services - so requested feature development happens faster.
• better analytics on the free version.  they track everything and give it to you for free.  need i say more?

Disadvantages:

• At the moment, they only have support in a few languages - korean and english i think
• no widespread community support since they are still a small company.  one of wordpress’s strengths is that it has a huge community of developers dedicated to maintaining and contributing to product.  textcube may develop a community down the line, but at the moment, the company does most of the development themselves.

i will keep you all posted on their developments, but just wanted to share some of the cool companies i saw in korea with you.  pic below - from left to right - chester roh (founder and CEO), chang kim (CEO),  me, shin-young park (former ceo of bebetown and current nyu ITP grad student), ted grubb

i am in vegas for three days to attend the asian american marketing conference that is hosted by the asian american advertising federation.  today, yul kwon, the korean american who won survivor, was the keynote.  tomorrow, i am most excited about the giant robot  talk which will be given by eric nakamura.  i’ve been a fan of their company for years:)

this is the first asian marketing conference i have ever attended and am getting to know the small and tight-knit group of advertising professionals that handle this niche market. some things i’ve learned:

• the folks in this industry are very dedicated to making sure mainstream products are marketed to asians as well.
• the asian ad market is WAY behind in terms of internet trends - they still think newspapers are the way to go.
• no one knows about soompi!

this last point is the one that amazes me the most.  in some ways, since soompi’s demographic is younger than the staff at most of these agencies, it makes sense that they haven’t been on the site. BUT, if they are doing their research, they would know we are a big player in the asian american online space.  on the bright side, i am talking to alot of people about our site (perhaps something i should have done earlier, but in all honestly, product development and community management already takes up 110% of our time).

regarding point number two - i know i am a bit spoiled being from san francisco where everyone speaks web.  but honestly, if you are at any ad agency in this day and age, you need to know the basic vocabulary of pageviews, traffic rankings, monthly unique visitors, etc.  the reality is that people are consuming their news, entertainment, and lives online and you need to follow your customers.  not a hard concept to grasp.

 i went to this funny cafe in seoul, shinchon - in front of yonsei university called doctor fish cafe. its a cafe where $10 gets you a drink, a piece of cake, an aromatherapy foot bath and a session with a bunch of fish that suck on your feet. i shall tag this one “random”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxgm2UXRyt0&hl=en]

we got invited out to dinner by some korean friends for a seafood dinner.  not for the squimish. the eels are alive until we cook em. personally, i really dont like this stuff and i tend to stick to tamer meals, but i wanted to share it with you guys.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnZ8hQk0i40&hl=en]

i’ve been in seoul for almost a week now and have had a whirlwind of meetings.  here is a quick summary of some of the cool people and companies i have met thusfar:

storyblender - this is the company founded by my friend, hyoung yong-joon, who is also one of the original founders of cyworld. storyblender is an online video editing platform that allows a casual user to either use their library of items or upload a user’s own items.  yong is an alum of KAIST (korea advanced institute of science and technology - the korean MIT) and you will see me running into alot of KAIST alum on this trip:)

bluehole - bluehole is a game development company that is building a new mmo.  their founder, chang byung-gyu, was also the founder of neowiz  and KAIST alum.  i was able to get a sneak peek at the bluehole product and i must say, i am really looking forward to when the game is released. byung-gyu is a very sharp guy and has come up with some interesting game play aspects that i think mmo players would enjoy. (he also has this cute accent when he speaks korean - he’s not from seoul, but my korean is not good enough to quite tell where he is from ^^)

musicshake - some of you may remember musicshake from techcrunch40 where their presentation wow’ed the crowd.  they are still making great progress with their product - it looks very slick now.  i stopped by their office and got to meet some inhouse musicians and play in one of their recording studios.

GOM tv -  GOM tv is like our hulu, but with a downloadable player.  the gom media player is one of the top 20 downloads on download.com. a great player but it is still windows only:(  gom tv is also a great source of LEGAL!!! content in korea - like movies, dramas, etc.  haha, thats hard to find these days, you know;)  also, they have a very sharp team of perfectly bilingual folks heading up their global development (hi ethan and jp - who is also yet anothe KAIST alum).

also, went to this crazy random event yesterday after being invited by the Gom tv folks.  turns out last night, youtube Korea was having a party to celebrate the launch of youtube in Korean.  it was a giant party of over 1500 people with performers, dancers, singers and a red carpet in the front of the club.  it was a spectacle not seen at a tech party since 1999=P  steve chen came and said hi to the crowd and even gave awards to the creators of the famous youtube video creators, like the guitar player playing the canon - that was pretty cool. it was interesting meeting a bunch of the google korea team, but i was amazed with how far everything felt from silicon valley.  google is having a very hard time entering the korean market because koreans all tend to all coalesce around the local companies like daum and naver. (but more on that in another post).

2 more days jam packed with meetings, so i will write more later.