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

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March 24th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Woah, a Korean web site with utf-8! That’s almost a first! Very cool… I definitely have to give it a whirl. Thanks for the link.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Very Good
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 am
Added. Nice work on this one. Btw, my blog is dofollow, stop by and grab a link. Walter
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Nice post, you got some good points there - thank you.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:26 am
[...] Joyce Kim, seorang blogger, mengatakan bahwa TextCube mempunyai dashboard yang lebih bersih. Di TextCube kita juga lebih mudah mengintegrasikan video, foto dan podcast dalam postingan. Konon ada fitur drag-and-drop yang mempermudah untuk memasukkan foto, memformat text di seputar gambar, menciptakan slideshow, resize gambar dan lain-lain. Kim menyebut bahwa kecantikan TextCube terletak pada kesederhanaannya. [...]
September 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
[...] Googlehas acquired South Korea’s TNC, maker of the open-source blogging and publishing platform Textcube, co-CEO Chang Kim said on his personal blog today. I met with the TNC team back in March, when I was visiting Seoul. I liked the company so much that I talked about it on an episode of The GigaOM Show and wrote about Textcube on my own blog. [...]
September 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
[...] which is the blogging platform I use here on this blog. I even wrote up a short piece about it here and told by buddy Om to check it [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 3:15 am
[...] cuenta la blogger Joyce Kim en este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?“, detalla una serie de ventajas y desventajas entre Wordpress y Textcube en las que se pueden [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 8:30 am
[...] Joyce Kim, seorang blogger, mengatakan bahwa TextCube mempunyai dashboard yang lebih bersih. Di TextCube kita juga lebih mudah mengintegrasikan video, foto dan podcast dalam postingan. Konon ada fitur drag-and-drop yang mempermudah untuk memasukkan foto, memformat text di seputar gambar, menciptakan slideshow, resize gambar dan lain-lain. Kim menyebut bahwa kecantikan TextCube terletak pada kesederhanaannya. [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 10:06 am
[...] el blog de Joyce Kim podemos leer sobre las diferencias entre Textcube y WordPress y entre ellas para mi destaca lo que [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
[...] lengkapnya Tatter and Company ) merupakan pengembang dari Textcube, blogging platform yang menurut Joyce Kim, lebih baik dari wordpress. Dashboard yang lebih clean, lebih mudah mengintegrasikan konten multimedia, comment tracking [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 2:01 am
[...] Joyce Kim em seu blog nos mostra algumas características dessa ferramenta: [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 3:02 am
[...] legge in giro per la blogosfera, sembrerebbe essere anche meglio di WordPress sotto certi aspetti. Joyce Kim per esempio ci elenca una serie di vantaggi e qualche svantaggio rispetto al cms di [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 6:08 am
[...] Dirson veo una lista de puntos más fuertes que tiene textcube frente a WP escrita por Joyce Kim: - tiene un Dashboard mucho maś claro - es mucha más sencilla la tarea de insertar vídeos, fotos [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 8:37 am
[...] Dans les annonces d’acquisitions, il y a Google qui achète TextCube… Et un article qui …Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de TextCube… pour la bonne raison que ce logiciel Open Source est … coréen.Le site officiel est en coréen. Et il n’y a pas le moindre petit drapeau pour passer en version anglaise! [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
[...] este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?” (”¿Textcube mejor que [...]
September 16th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
[...] Google has acquired South Korea’s TNC, maker of the open-source blogging and publishing platform Textcube, co-CEO Chang Kim said on his personal blog today. I met with the TNC team back in March, when I was visiting Seoul. I liked the company so much that I talked about it on an episode of The GigaOM Show and wrote about Textcube on my own blog. [...]
September 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
[...] esta plataforma e esta possui uma excelente integração com redes sociais. Já apareceu até gente fazendo comparação entre as duas plataformas e afirmando que TextCube é tecnicamente melhor…, [...]
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 am
[...] O mais interessante é que a plataforma mal foi adquirida pela Google e já sairam notas de comparação entre os dois sistemas, inclusive falando que o textcube é melhor que o Wordpress. [...]
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
[...] cuenta la blogger Joyce Kim en este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?“, detalla una serie de ventajas y desventajas entre Wordpress y Textcube en las que se pueden [...]
September 25th, 2008 at 6:13 am
[...] quieren un análisi mas a fondo recomiendo leer a Joyce Kim en este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?“, donde hay detalladas una serie de ventajas y desventajas entre Wordpress y Textcube, entre [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 9:13 am
[...] cuenta la blogger Joyce Kim en este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?“, detalla una serie de ventajas y desventajas entre WordPress y Textcube en las que se pueden [...]
November 11th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] cuenta la blogger Joyce Kim en este post titulado “Textcube better than WordPress?“, detalla una serie de ventajas y desventajas entre Wordpress y Textcube en las que se pueden [...]
November 15th, 2008 at 4:18 am
[...] Kim detalla al seu blog alguns dels avantatges i inconvenients d’aquest software per saber si pot ser realment una [...]