Yesterday Naver(naver.com) announced that they merged me2day(me2day.net). Naver is Korean number 1 internet portal web site, whose market share is around 60%. me2day is micro blog web service which is similar to twitter(twitter.com).

Naver offered 2.2 billion won (around 1.6 million US dollar considering current exchange rate) for 100% of me2day’s share. The micro blogging service, me2day might be the most popular Korean web 2.0 service so far, its UV per month is 150 thousand. me2day is also providing mobile convergence service like mobile SNS, people can post short article or photo using SMS or MMS. Naver might strengthen their mobile web service through this deal.

Google Korea started to provide free Wi-Fi at Starbucks with KT. This is the first aggressive marketing in Korean market, also it is the first off-line marketing in Korea. Actually Starbucks Korea and KT already set up KT’s Wi-Fi network, called Nespot, at Starbucks’ stores three years ago, which was not free.

Google is providing free Wi-Fi using this Nespot network. People are connected to iGoogle, Google’s personalized page service, as a main page at first when they’re trying to connect to the internet. However login is not needed, only iGoogle is exposed at first for using Wi-Fi free.

In Korea, there are 276 Starbucks stores and 170 stores of those are in Seoul. So, I guess that this promotion definitely will help Google Korea to get closer to Korean users.

Since my interview was quoted on Wall Street Journal, I could find my interview also quoted in blog as well. Through Googling, I found that Patrick, a blogger, quoted my interview from WSJ at his post, Video on the Third Screen. Truly my thinking is getting known more globally through WSJ , which is pleasure for me.

Video on the Third Screen

South Korea is at the head of the pack when it comes to mobile video and its experience holds lessons for other countries heading down the same path.

– ellipsis–

“We are very good at making technology and new services,” Chung Yun-ho, a telecom industry consultant and managing partner of Seoul-based consulting firm Veyond Partners, told the newspaper. “But considering the business model wisely is not something we are good at.”