Four years before Second Life was launched and achieved success, a Korean service called Dada World with similar features was launched. Unfortunately did it fail and went under in the IT bubble but also for being ahead of its time in many ways. The project was led by a professor of Kwang Woon university who apparently didn’t give up the idea and he is now about to be the leading figure in the launch of a new service called Teo23. Teo is Korean for place and 23 refer to the twenty third century.

The main aim is the Korean market but one major difference from Second Life is the possibility to shop with real money. So, while walking around with your avatar and being social, you can also enter different shops and markets and buy what you want, pay with your mobile phone and then have it sent home to you. It also claims to include better graphics and easier control and diverse social communities as other advantages.

Second Life never really made it in Korea, and the Koreans remain reluctant to embrace foreign services. One of the reasons for this is the difficulties in understanding the Korean market for foreign companies. Another big problem is the language barriers that comes with the lack of English proficiency and the Korean alphabet Hangul. Therefore, Teo23 have more potential than Second Life since it is adjusting the services to the local markets, something many global companies should learn from.

SK Telecom has announced that user number of “Mobile Cyworld” users has exceeded 1 million, being far ahead of other mobile services like Mobile Daum Café (0.14 million) or Mobile Naver Blog (0.1 million). At the same time the average monthly page view of mobile CyWorld is 350 million which results in the fact that on average a user visits mobile CyWorld eleven times a day or basically once an hour.

65% of the users are female and 50% of the users are between 19-25 years old. Besides writing messages to their friends’ “Minihompy”, sending pictures which have been taken by mobile to their own “Minihompy”. Over a million photos are sent like that monthly resulting in nice data related revenue for SK Telecom. These are usage patterns other MNOs and service providers dream of. Due to age segment specific marketing activities SK Telecom is able to design customized service offerings which add significant value to the customer experience. At the same time it is combined with adequate pricing, e.g. it has a flatrate for usage of mobile CyWorld being very attractive to the younger target group.

This August, I am speaking at iMobicon 2007 on the landscape of ‘Korean Social Networking and Mobile TV’. If you are not familiar with iMobicon, it is an international conference organized by Informa only focuing on Korean Mobile industry.
Most major mobile related companies will participate such as SK Telecom, KTF,Cyworld and many more.

You can find some of the most fascinating stories and dynamics of Korean mobile industry.Any one thinking of participating in iMobicon, I am happy to keep in touch in advance.