Over the last couple of years, I’ve worked on several consulting projects in various fields, ranging from social media marketing, education, trend analysis, to mobile application store strategies and B2B application suite building. I think enough time has passed for me to mix and match my professional side with my more-casual experience in the blogging world: maybe TechnoKimchi should cover both the culture and the industry.”
So, I’m planning to write about industries, issues, ecosystems, markets in Korean digital tech over the next couple of weeks. I’m thinking of 10 topics, meaning I will give myeslf an ‘A’ if I get to write one post per week and get it done before the end of the year. Here’s the list of topic candidates:
- Mobile (manufacturers and devices)
- Mobile (telcos)
- Portal (search, communities, blogs)
- Game (traditional, large-scale)
- Game (mobile, social)
- Social Networking
- Music
- Location (Maps, LBS, Navigation, GPS)
- Entrepreneurship and VCs
- Government Regulations
I’m currently projecting the posts to be written at an “overview” level, but still comprehensive, like the ReadWriteWeb‘s fascinating Never Mind the Valley series.
Now, time for your voice: are there any topics/categories you suggest that should be added to the list above? Also, any name you might want to give to the series itself?
If you want to taste and see TechnoKimchi more, you can refer to the topic cloud on the right side of this blog. Warning: it’s quite spicy!
Another topic I forgot to mention, which would be interesting and fit well in “2. Mobile (telcos)” is discussion of pre-pay versus post-pay. As far as I understand there isn’t or at least wasn’t any pre-pay offerings. With UMTS becoming more popular is this changing? If so are there SIM-only deals? And are the offerings tailored for voice, data or both?
Thanks.
Here are a few topics and questions which I’d find interesting to read about and which you may already have planned to cover in this series:
* How/whether the impact of the iPhone is having an effect on the quasi monopoly of Windows on the desktop. Is the reliance of ActiveX for many services going away on the desktop as well or is it limited to the mobile (and if so, how is it enforced: user agent, etc.). Is OS X on the desktop getting more popular? Or Linux (if Android is getting popular as well)?
* What kind of data retention there is? Who is it done by (telcos, police, other agency, etc.)? How long is the info retained? (In Europe, all countries must have laws to retain traffic data including location; this data is retained for 12 months in the UK.)
* Are Korean mobile developers usually targeting one platform or several, or mobile web? Which ones are popular? What are the most popular developer resources, i.e. manufacturers’ websites, UI providers ones, independent ones, etc. Where are developers located (mostly in Seoul, close to universities, etc.)?
* Are smartphones displacing navigation-only devices in cars?
Looking forward to your series.
Hi David,
Thx for dropping by!
I think your questions probably will require additional posts as they’re well beyond the “overview” level topics; also, I’ll need to do quite a bit of research on them as well
But they all seem to be very real issues that definitely need to be addressed and I’ll make sure to cover them down the road one way or the other.
By the way, your questions seem to reflect your in-depth understanding of the Korean Tech landscape really well. Have you been long-interested in the topics or maybe working on a consulting project-ish thing on those topics?
Cheers,
Taewoo,
Thanks. I used to work in the mobile industry in the UK (looking after developers at Symbian and then UIQ) and have been several times to Korea on holidays. My interest is mostly curiosity.
Sorry about the late reply. It’s awesome how you have interests in Korean mobile industries (and also how you’ve visited Korea before!) Let’s keep dialogues rolling as I expect some goodies through our conversations
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Hi Taewoo – Can yo please share your email id with me; as we would like to get in touch with you for a possible write-up in LG’s new phone that will be of interest to your readers. Please write to me at payal@ripplelinks.com