Recently I have read the case of little Megan who has committed suicide over a fake virtual boy friend created by some peers. Apart from the human tragedy behind the story what struck are two facts. Firstly the careless abuse of MySpace by peers, who considered the whole thing being a joke. Secondly the fact that often laws do not seem to be ready for the challenges of digital society. In Megan’s case e.g. no law has been violated because no such law exists.
Since Korean society is more “wired” than any other in the world, we encounter similar problems or have encountered them even earlier. At this Korean government and society try to be proactive as possible in facing the challenges of digital society. One example, which is also applicable to the case above, is the anonymity of the internet in social networking sites and forums, which has been a serious problem in Koreain the past. Government addressed this issue by introducing an obligation to verify your internet egos with your real ID. This is to prevent abuse because people are aware of the fact that they are not anonymous anymore (in the light of privacy security this may not be the best solution though). However punishing is one thing but creating a feeling of unethical behavior is a completely different one and in Megan’s case both had been missing. Concerning the latter a good example is a media campaign which had been launched in order to sensitize people that cyber bullying is unethical behavior and can have serious consequences. Below you may find an ad out of this campaign, the spoken text is something like: “Destroying one’s soul is terror which is crueler than terror”.

So overall Korea is not only a place for business opportunities but it is also worth having a look at if you are searching for examples how policy can tackle the challenges of digital society.

are one of the reasons for the success of SK Telecom. (In the last years SK Telecom has been able to achieve and maintain a market share of around 50%.) An example for the segment specific approach is the existence of three different payment plans for specific age segments: TTL (18-24), TING (13-17) and TINGjunior (under 12).

Each of the payment plans does not only have a tailored communication, exemplified by three different websites as shown above, but also tailored services and pricing. E.g. Ting is offering reduced rates weekdays (between 21:00-24:00 – the time when teenagers come back from school) and during certain periods (summer and winter vacation). Moreover offers and deals on the website are customized to the target groups needs, featuring free educational content (TINGjunior), events and cinema (TING) and the possibility to set a spending limit (both). Additionally SK Telecom is offering child care services, e.g. location notification once your child leaves a designated zone, tracking and emergency SMS so do not need to worry. Targeting specific segments allows MNOs to provide relevant services, which add value in the eyes of the customers which again leads to higher ARPU. In the Western world this segment specific approach has been chosen by many MVNOs, but in order to increase ARPU and educate users to utilize their data related services it is crucial for MNOs to go the same way.

Android the open source operating system for mobile devices is cheered throughout Western media. It is considered as a milestone which will lower production cost for handsets (and thus for consumers), enlarge potential markets for developers (because they will not need to focus on one manufacturer) and at the same time educate consumers to finally embrace mobile data services. In my point of view the impact on the Korean market will be smaller. My expectation is that especially handset manufacturers will profit from lower hardware requirements, shorter production cycles and thus lower cost. This is why both major handset manufacturers like Samsung and LG have joined the alliance. However Android is not very likely to affect consumers as much as it will on Western markets.

In contrast to Europe Korean MNOs do not fight for market share but try to increase ARPU this results in the fact that data related services are much more sophisticated than in the rest of the World. Already nowadays with approx. 26% of SK Telecoms revenues coming from data related services, customers are “educated” to use them. Moreover SK Telecom has recently partially opened its interface for third party developers and more importantly services which will be developed for Android are likely to be inspired by Korean existing value added services. Due to the sophistication of the Korean mobile market Western developers can use it as a visionary ground in which they can observe what the latest developments in value added services are and which services really add value. So developers who want to join the “gold rush” which Google has announced recently (with a total of 10 million USD for promising Android applications) should have a close look on the Korean mobile market.