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