It's not over!!

Actually during this semester, posting once in every week seemed to be bothersome things. But now it's so sad that it would be my last posting homework.

As this course's purpose, I want to keep social networking with you guys and hope to get some informative information from you even after this semester.

I want to introduce Korea's social networking services (SNS).


Compared with U.S, Korea has not various SNSs but there are many useful SNSs in Korea more than I expected.

http://www.cyworld.com/
http://www.puppyred.com/
http://www.linknow.kr/
http://www.starpl.com/
http://www.tossi.com/
http://www.ko.playtalk.net/
http://www.agentwang.com/
http://www.sedari.co.kr/

Listed above is the Korea's popular SNSs. As I mentioned before, Cyworld is definitely number 1 social networking site in Korea as Facebook in U.S. Except Cyworld and PlayTalk, I never heard before about these things. I feels like I was isolated from social networking before this class.

PlayTalk is almost same with Twitter. I've never used this one, but I'm going to sign it up right after buying my new laptop :). And Puppyred is something like Secondlife, but it's kind of online game so companies do not promote here. This point is not like Secondlife. When I first saw many companies' islands in Secondlife, I thought it would be awesome if Korean corporations joined in social networking online game.

Next is Linknow and Sedari, now I'm surpsied that these are really same with Linkedin..I think many SNSs in Korea are might bechmarking successuful other SNSs in U.S.

Tossi is like kind of Mobile Twitter. This service's main tool is Mobile. Users can upload mobile picture and short comment about it. It's mobile 2.0! Now I'm exciting that I can apply some words that I've learn from this class haha.
Agentwang is kind of SNS that manages other people's profiles. By social networking considered as importand theme in business, Managing profiles is also become important.

Through these SNSs in Korea, now I knew that I was just Cyworld holic..Already there were many SNSs also in Korea. I'm going to join these sites when I go back to Korea.
Anyway I really enjoyed this class.
Take Care everyone!!

PR 2.0 !!

I thought I've already well known about social media, but through this week's sixdegrees reading, I realized that I missed some important point. That is, relationship between social media and ROI (Return On Investment).

Many companies use social media..then for what??

And how can companies measure ROI of social media??

The profit through using shared social media (blogs, video clips, twitter, YouTube etc..) is hard to measure by specific number and visible effects.

To make these ROI be seen exact numbers, I think technology is the most important.

Many companies like google already invent some tools to measure their activities into graph or some images, but in some cases I think they just show visitors' number or total number of page views. I think these things are not connected to ROI directly.

Through this advanced technology, companies can show its effectiveness to their investors.

Social media's main purpose is to communicate with their customers. Using social media company can share their information with customer.

Also certain customer's feedback can be shared with other customers. So social media is the most important tool to promote company's products and company itself.

That is PR 2.0!!

But if company just use their social media to make a profit, then soon smart customer would recognize that. Therefore companies try to have a conversation with their customers sincerely.

This linked YouTube video explain the social media and its effectiveness by using very easy example.

http://www.thedailytube.com/video/10413/social-media-ice-cream

Please talk in 140 characters!!

I've never heard about Twitter before..so I tried to learn about that.

I found that Twitter is kind of blog that very short and quick talking about user's every little things in life..

I think everybody wants to talk and share about their everyday life with their friend and family.

So we used cell phone and e-mail before the Twitter.

Using Twitter, users can type just one sentence and it can be shared by their circle or members.

I thought that it's very similar with messenger program, but soon I realized that Twitter is more open case to other users than messenger worked. In messenger, only 2~3 people can talk there, but, through the Twitter, one user can share his or her situation simultaneously with other friends. I learn that It's very easy and quick way to upload on internet.

Acoording to the article,Why Twitter Matters, they said about Twitter's social networking..

Much of the Twittering crowd argues that Twitter will continue to grow in
importance, perhaps rivaling other social media powers such as Facebook. "I have
hundreds of friends on FB, but have done 10x the networking, connecting &
communicating on Twitter," tweets Christian Anderson.

In this way, Twitter is much easier to connected and communicate each other.

(pictures from http://flowingdata.com/2008/03/12/17-ways-to-visualize-the-twitter-universe/)

It limited the length of writing in 140 characters. I think it is important rule in Twitter. Users do not need to have any pressure about the good manner in writing, so it makes more people gethered in Twitter. Also it makes social networking easier and more convenient.

Invisible team

When I was in South Korea last year, I actually did virtual team in my business class.

In my home university, they have some online classes that professor appear on the computer screen then we have to log in the class and listen what he/she said. So we don't need to go to school, I think it saves our time and money.

Last year I heard the class "Principles of Marketing" on the PC screen. In that class, professor made groups and one leader for team project, then he made online space to exchange our opinion. Even though we were living in the same city, not that long distance, we use the internet as our main communication tool. We met in the MSN messenger or NATE ON(Korean famous messenger because it is connected to Cyworld) once a week. Team leader assign a part of the work and I researched my jobs during the week, then integrated our works together.

(He was my Marketing professor, and the class was really fun. Actually he was fun)

According to the "Coworking is (also) : Working Together Online", the writer said about various kinds of coworking communication tools.

With document sharing provided by mainstream services like Google, video chat
supported by Yahoo, conference calling, combined with chat and peer-to-peer file
transfer available for free via Skype, audio and video blogging, coworking tools
are becoming more and more ubiquitous, and people are beginning to use them with as little forethought as picking up a telephone - a telephone which, of course, is Internet-compatible, GPS-enabled, and can capture photos and video.

Because we were all students, we couldn't use such various tools for communication. But through the internet, I just uploaded my assignment whenever I wanted and met them without any traffic expenses. I think this kind of team is more effective and can cut cost a lot.

My team made good project and achieved our goal successfully. I actually met our team member once, face-to-face, in another class. Because he's name was rare name in Korea, I can recognized him easily when a professor called his name. I knew that he also recognized me, because of my rare name. It was so embarrassed!!!!

I Can Be a Journalist !!

Social News??
Social Publishing??

I first heard about "Social News" this week through Sixdegrees, so I tried to find out what is social news. I visited many social news website such as "digg" "reddit" and "newsvine". According to "A Beginner's Guide to Social News Websites", there is good definition about social news.

Social News websites are communities which allow its users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other users or the general public. Some of these articles will be given more visibility, depending on various factors such as the number of user votes for each item.

But I didn't understand the meaning clearly.
When I first visited those websites, I don't know why people try to update already posted news in other news sites, because we can read the news on official news site like CNN, Washington Post.

But...soon I fall in love with "digg". People can see the number of other's digg so readers can recognize what is the most popular to others and other people's interest. I think this happens because people always want to know about other's feedback. That is, Social Networking.

I found that "newsvine" is very different from other websites. Users can create their own news. Anyone can be a reporter and write their opinions or news. This is really good for people to get as much as information, however, I think it would be also dangerous tools because anyone can get power through articles.

In Korea, one of the famous model / actress "Byun Jung Soo" was the victim of social news.
One college girl write a article that she die from car accident. It was definitely lie. That college girl faked the name of famous reporter, and she make the article like one of Korea's official news website. This faked news spread through internet and blogs, so many people believe the news and felt sorry to her.

But soon she's alive!! She came up to TV and said she still alive.

She was really shocked about her death rumor news, but she forgave that college girl because she thought she was young girl, and she did it just for fun not knowing how much the article would be problem.
Anyway..In this web2.0 age, we can be anything we want such as journalist, doctor, singer and photographer without having professional sense. We can choose anything but use our power in good way.

Every Jack has his Gill on internet.

How can we find our life partner??

Who is your soul mate??

It's the most difficult things to figure out our "one" for the rest of our life.

When someone decide her or his marriage to another person, he/she become really careful.

"duo.co.kr" If you have interested in Korean guys or girls, visit duo! :)

In Korea, "Duo" is the most famous matchmaking website. It's purpose is not just dating but marriage. When someone doesn't have boyfriend or girlfriend although their age become marriageable, then they can sign in the site. Even Duo requires admission fee that cost is about from 1000$ to 8000$, but many people want to join.

According to "Will the Web Replace the Business Lunch?", article says that

"After signing up for membership, users can run searches on companies they've
worked for in the past to find and contact former co-workers, or they might
search companies that they've done business with and find old business
associates. The goal is to make the longstanding practice of glad-handing at
conferences, collecting business cards and remembering faces as easy as signing
in and sending an e-mail."

When I first read this paragraph, Duo's matchmaking system came across my mind. Duo and LinkedIn has many similarities. Duo's matchmaking system also needs to gether as many as people and information through their past experiences. So they are collecting profiles and classifying all the member's style and conditions of membership. If one man and woman's needs are matching each other, then Duo's manager make an appointment to introduce each other in off-line. So I think matchmaking networking in Duo works similary to professional networking, also it provide marriage consults for their membership to get more satisfied marriage.

"Networking for Students: Step-by-Step Guide - Boston.com" says that..

Every professional networking contact, electronic or face-to-face, needs to be carefully crafted, planned, or practiced. One misspelled word, one uncapitalized pronoun “I”, one lapse of over-familiarity or unprofessionalism, and your best chance of making a positive impression may have been wasted.

Because it is professional networking contact, you should't type your profile or career faked like facebook or other private blogs' profiles. All your information is important to your connection with other people and chance to get a job. In this point, Duo's matchmaking networking also needs user's honesty and it's information should be accurate.

But actually LinkedIn doesn't require any accurate information when someone try to sign in. They don't require user's real name and real career. I became wonder that there are must be some possibilities to try to fake other people. So I try to find some policies about this problem. After all, I found information from Korean website "Naver". One Korean IT company Intervewed with one of LinkedIn's employee,Liz. (http://www.hedgeplus.net/tag/professional%20networking%20service)

She said that basically they don't regulate any personal information but it is surely prevented by collective intelligence. Certain user who has bad intention might say that he/she graduated Harvard University, but in the end other members will find out his/her untruth through broaden social networking. Members can add comments and report faked user as a spam. Therefor it has been solved by self-purification.

So I think Professional networking is very different from other private networking. It should be more careful and it's impact is much more important.

In professional networking, act professionally.

I Know What You Did Last Summer..

"I know what you did last summer..."

This horrible things happen to you and me on the internet..

In Korea, many people use cyworld as their main blog.

Sometimes I got notes from someone I don't know who he is...

One of those note is from my old friends ( Primary school, middle school or high school friends)

then it can be very glad and exciting greeting :) Actually I had been met some old friends who couldn't contact for about 10 years. We talked about our childhood and it was great time..

But....some notes from stragers..it scared me so much..and sometimes they know about me..

Actually, in cyworld, I can find anyone I want by name of profile.

I try typing my name on the search engine

Because my last name is so rare in South Korea, people can find me so easily.

I got just 8 people having same name..(My blog is second one :) )

It also shows the date of birth, so anyone can find me for just 10 seconds.

From the article, Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks, writer says

At the same time, nearly two-thirds of teens with profiles (63%) believe
that a motivated person could eventually identify them from the information they
publicly provide on their profiles.

I really agree to this opinion, through cyworld profiles anyone who try to detect me can get my information just in 2~3 clicks..They also know what I did this vacation or this weekend.

Even I didn't allow access to my pictures and posting to anonymous, they can see my pictures through my friend's which had no restrict to anyone.

Actually, I did it sometimes to find out when I have interesting in someone.

According to the video, "Can Privacy Exist on the Internet?", It can be more serious when my employers visit my Facebook or Cyworld because they can affect my future career and promotion. Then we should act like right and diligent person even on the Internet. Sometimes we want be more freely out of office.

I think many people think that it's okay when I try to find some information from someone because it is just for curious, but it's the invasion of privacy when other people do that.

This is problem and can be serious privacy invasion without any guilty.

Recommend me a awesome laptop!!

Somebody Help Me!!

My laptop was broken down about 10 days ago..so sad.....
It was really embarrassed for me that can't use laptop anymore in my home and school.
Most of all, I don't know about any electronic things, so I was almost in Chaos.

I was stressed because I couldn't do my homework such as writing essay and reading which is posted in internet. Also I couldn't bring my laptop even "Social Networking & Business" class..

I decided to buy some new awesome cheap high-quality light thin well-designed and 12' size laptop!!
I'm not a picky shopper I just cautious customer..haha :)
I was searching on some famous online shops and laptop comany's site such as Dell, Fujitsu, Sony, Apple and HP..........

While hesitating, I found some helpful and imformative site!! That was, notebookreview.com

In this site, customer can rate their laptop and share their own opinion about it. As a online shopping customer, I had many failed buying experiences ignoring other's opinion....

Since now I'm stay in foreign country,US, and I don't have my own car, it is very hard to visit some offline shops. So this review site was really helpful to me and I can pick any computer that is proper to my needs and price. Laptop is kind of expensive and long-term using electronic product, so I have to consider every factors. Acoording to the Sixdegrees article, Social Retailing - The Future of Retail Online, it said that..

A solo hunter shopping for a pair of shoes just buys a pair of shoes,
explained the author of the report, analyst Ray Valdes. A social gatherer
shopping for shoes, on the other hand, may never buy them, but they’ll spend two or three times the amount the solo shoppers spend on items they had no initial intention of buying.

I really agree to this opinion. I spent almost one week considering every possibilities and factors. We are all social gather shopper and can affect in other's buying decision each other.

Now almost every online shops are using this method to get competitive advantages in industry. We can call this kind of strategy as "Conversational Marketing". It is explained in "Conversational Marketing Asks "Can We Talk?"". It said that..

Conversational Marketing, explains Troja, "is the marketing
strategy of connecting directly to the marketplace through online conversation.
It is a direct and completely transparent interaction with customers, potential
customers, brand fans and brand detractors. The conversation,"

By reading other customers' buying experience in certain product, I can get honest and flank information that can't be provided by company's advertising and post. I visit many online shops everyday to find out the best laptop and whenever I read some recommendations in internet, change my mind everytime..Maybe I can buy "HP Pavilion" ranked in 1st..but now I'm in worring that how can I believe those opinions of other?? Yeah.. I don't trust them....You can trust them?

Ask NAVER!!

Where is the best place to dating with my boyfriend/girlfriend??
Ask Naver!!

My laptop doesn't work..what should I do??
Ask Naver!!

Which company should I invest??
Ask Naver!!

Have you ever heard about NAVER??
In Korea, Naver is rule!! as Google does in US..

In Naver, you can ask anything you wonder every little things ..also you can definitely find a answer immediately..I think I can't live without Naver for just one day..It is really helpful..

In Korea, Google users are less than Naver..because Korean people are already familir with Naver so much, so they will not change their prior searching web site easily.

As studying in abroad, now I realized that google is the best engine for seaching. Google is very simple in their design, so I felt that they concentrate on searching knowledge. They put their focus on gethering their every knowlege and finding it in high speed. In other words, it specialized in computer searching.

Otherwise, Naver try to cover every field of business. On the home page there are many advertisement and News that interrupt users to search their materials. Also it makes web site very slowly..but you can get any knowledge from private and various experiences.

Naver has many problems like "User Generated Content & Search" says in article that

Cons of UGC: Oversight and moderation, spam, false and outdated info, who
owns the content, structure can be challenging, negation information about your
brand, etc.

The knowledge in Naver are sometimes inaccurate, so my home university's professors really hate their student's homework cited from Naver..because sometimes the knowledge are from elementary school students and outdated information.

I think UGC is very innovated tool I ever had..Thanks to UGC we can get any types of information in our home for just 5 seconds. According to the posting "Nobel Laureate Says The Internet Makes Us Dumb, We Say:Meh". The writer criticize the Doris Lessing's speech.

The likes of Andrew Keen and Doris Lessing ignore the many benefits the
internet has provided in expanding access to knowledge to many, many more people than who may otherwise have had no access before.

I agree with this opinion that UGC makes people access to information than any other channels.

So we should be smart when we use the UGC..because sometimes you can bring your girlfrined or boyfrined in awful restaurant and invest your money in almost bankrupted company..

My Own Crowdsourcing Experience

I think many people already know about “Outsourcing”, but this week, I heard about “crowdsourcing” for the first time. This new word just shows the meaning very easily and directly. I learn this word from “YouTube-CBC-The current-Cambrian House Crowdsourcing”. The Crowdsourcing means that a company let their product or service outsourced to anyone who wants to join it by providing their ideas.

When I watched this video, some experience was passing my brain. I know that I already experienced some kind of crowdsourcing in my home country, South Korea. In accessory industry, I can design my own necklace, bracelet and ring. Actually, I designed my cell phone accessory with silver.

(This is my name in Korean Character)

I can order my accessory with my design to skillful technician, then they make the finished product through my design. I think this pattern is almost same in Crowdsourcing. The customer can design their own product then he/she can have profit from selling the product if the product become very popular to other customers.

Another my experience is in Myong-Dong where very popular to Korean young people. I went to there once a week, because I liked this place. Oneday I found something interesting place "Nijke Dunklow Exhibition", so I dropped by and spent really great time there. I choose the dunklow's color and shape of pattern on computer, then computer simulate my own design shoe on the huge white screen-like shoe.

(This is screen-like huge shoe and I designed my own shoes)

I think this experience also can be a kind of Crowdsourcing, because I designed my shoes through computer even though I didn't order it. According to BusinessWeek "Nike's New Public Design Studio-Where Consumers Become Designers", article says "With NIKEiD Studios, Nike is proving to be a company that's one step ahead of the trends, applying fresh new retail tactics to the company's established marketing strategies." I agree with this opinion. To meet customer's needs now company should be more creative and be sensitive to customers changes and requests. But I think there will be some problems about royalty thing. So we should be enough ready to take legal steps for Crowdsourcing.

Watch out your doppelganger!!

When I was child, I saw some horrified movie, “Doppelganger”. It was really shocked to me, so I still remember some of scenes. The movie story was that if somebody found their own doppelganger, one of them will be die. So my brother and I always look around to avoid our own doppelganger.

Finally I overcome that movie’s doppelganger, however, as time goes by now I scared my virtual doppelganger. According to “Fast Talk: Getting A(second) Life” the writer says that “IBM will immerse thousands of new employees in company culture through its virtual doppelganger.” It means that IBM will use “Second Life” in company to train their interns. It was my first time hearing about “Second Life.” I decided to download the program, because I don’t know anything about it. It was really interesting process to register the “second life”.

(It is my Second Life Avatar & Second Name)

Then soon I became surprised about its elaborate system. I knew I'll be addicted to it the moment I click the log in button, because I have some experiences that I couldn't stand during my offline life since I really want to join the game. In other points, it can be a good tools to train someone's interaction and social ability. Like "Fast Talk: Getting A (Second) Life" said,

In the United States, we're using Second Life to create a mentoring community. We have multigenerational workforces, and this is a way to get together, virtually meet, and connect.

But I disagree with this point. In simple words, Second Life is not our real life. It is just the world that we want to be and we have to be. Personality in Second Life is not our real personality, because when we are living in Second Life we can do anything we want that we can't do in our real world (insulting someone, cheating with someone,,,) . These acts done by believing that other users can't recognize us in real world.

In "Softwar lets you create cybertwin", Liesl Capper, co founder of RelevanceNow, which built MyCyberTwin, describes the software as an extension of your personality online. "It can talk to friends when you're sleeping or tell people where the party is Saturday night," she said. I really disagree with this opinion, because it is just our computer that talking with my friends. This fact is more scared me than Second Life. It make us can not possible to control our online second life. It also can be privacy problem.

That is just company's marketing strategy to sell as much as product through online. I think the most important thing is that we should just enjoy the program knowing the fact that it is not our world and even ourselves.

Peripheral People in Social Network.

Have you ever heard about “OTAKU”? This word is very accustomed to Asian people, specially Japanese and Korean. In Japanese OTAKU means “Your Home”, but as time goes by it became the negative meaning-who don’t connected with any other just doing their own interests in their home. In other words, I think OTAKU is almost similar meaning with American word “gigs.” In Japanese, some movie about one OTAKU man’s love had been big hits. This movie’s title is “JunChaNam”- the internet guy.

(This photo is the movie poster of "Jun Cha Nam")

OTAKU is the person who has deeper attachment even than mania does. They concentrate only one thing such as Video, Computer Game, and Animation, so sometimes they are destitute of other common senses and other fields of information. In this aspect, sometimes OTAKU means that someone who is not good at communicating with others face to face. They just stay in their own home and communicate with other OTAKU through personal computer in unreality world.
While reading the “First Hand: Connecting to Collaborate: An Interview With Rob Cross”, I found that maybe OTAKU can be “People who are stuck on the edge of a network…” Also Cross said that . In these meaning, OTAKU are the representatives of these peripheral people. OTAKU not only enjoy themselves but also have influent on cultural things. They already become an expert in their interests, also they have eyes for criticizing culture. I think if we are well connected with OTAKU, disconnected person, we can get more useful information in social network.
In “Clive Thompson on Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends”, he says that . On the web, it is very helpful connecting channel which can get some useful and various information from peripheral people like OTAKU, so I agreed with his opinion. In this social network, therefore we should not let peripheral people disconnected because they can be the very useful resources of information.

Welcome !

Welcome to Eunbi's blog :)