TechnoKimchi

So, after months of preparation, we finally got together, to prepare even more for tomorrow. Most of the speakers and organizers were present at the meeting. Like many other conferences, it just feels really good to see those whom you only see online in real person!

For example, Gang Lu and I have been talking for over 2 years and we met for the first time today. Jason Calacanis, whom I sadly didn't get to meet in my last visit to SF in April, was such a great guy, as expected. I was able to hear many great stories from him and I was lucky enough to be able to offer him some insight as well. Andreas turned out to be one of the coolest and the most entertaining guys I've ever met. Loic was just as energizing as I envisioned him to be. What's cool is that guys knew about Korea a lot more than I thought. Tyler, in particular, enjoyed the "Stuff Korean Moms Like" blog, which is very rare to see unless you have that kind of Korean mom. :)

Honestly, one of the concerns I had for this group was that we wouldn't be too friendly and the conference would be too "corporate" and not-as-fun. But today, meeting with everyone simply blew away all of my worries. The group bonding was amazing and people were just friendly to one another and quick to greet each other.

We have a good number of registrants and are expecting a great day tomorrow. I'll do my best to live-blog from the conference tomorrow. Oh, don't forget that I'm one of the speakers as well. Should I go nuts and try to live-blog while on the panel? :)

If you want to follow the conference on twitter, http://twitter.com/openwebasia is it.

See you all tomorrow!

(more pictures)

from freelanceswtich.com

I pulled both of my hamstrings last week and my legs aren't feeling that great; so I stayed home all day today; and I worked all day. I had my Springnote stuff going on one side, Open Web Asia prep on the other, on top of all my blogs.

Here's the thing. I was home all day and I probably talked to something like 100 people, either through Skype, MSN messenger, Google Talk, email, blog comments, Springnote, Facebook, phone, SMS, and the list goes on. And I think I'm actually more tired than physically working in office with 10 teammates. Oh, and the people I talked to today are in L.A., New York, Boston, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, London, and Seoul.

This is what the Internet means to me. It's got some ontological and existential meaning in it. The Internet gives my existence a meaning. It proves that I'm alive to those that are in different time zones.

Like in the cartoon above, sometimes it puzzles me. I just wanna ask the person on the other side, whether on messenger or blog comments, "how can you be so sure that the person you're talking to is the person you think you're talking to?" Of course, it's possible to deceive someone even if you physically meet him or her; but the Internet makes it even more difficult to detect.

I believe that the online and offline realities must come together some time soon. This should be applied to collaboration as well. Communicating in non-physical space never can be as effective or rich in meaning as face-to-face communications, but we've just gotta find a better way for this.

The latest report in Korea says 99.9% of teens use the Intenret and something like 98.7% of those in their 30's. The way we communicate with and find meaning in each other is completely changing. We actually might be getting dumber. But, it's just the way it is.

How will this new technology be mixed with the Asian spirit and values, which have always valued harmony and co-existence over individualism and independence. Surely, you'll get a better picture at this at Open Web Asia next week.

This post isn't necesesarily about the digital generation in Korea, but the ever changing landscape in humanity in general, I guess. Or, I'm just very tired and don't really know what I'm talking about. ;)

So, with that, good night, folks!

Morever, we were lucky enough to catch up with two of our awesome speakers: Jason Calacanis, the fonder of Weblogs Inc. and Mahalo, and Loic LeMeur, the founder of Seesmic. Of course, they're not "Asian", but they give such great insight into the Web in Asia and what this conference can offer you. :)

I know it's kind of late, but if you're genuinely interested in Asia, don't miss out. The conference isn't the only goodie. Think about whom you can meet in person there. The speakers, me, Chang Kim, and many other Open Web Asia Workgroup members!

Oh, by the way, I becamse a speaker at the conference again. I don't think I'm quite at the same level as other speakers, so I'm just grateful and honored to be up there. I'll be talking about collaboration in Asia through the Web.

So, watch the videos below and click on the register button right away. (You can also register onsite on the conference day as well) Hope to see you all there soon :)

Disclaimer: I've been involved with the global marketing project for Springnote (as I mentioned here), so this post has quite a bit of marketing message in it. :)

(click on the picture to see it full size)

As much as blogs and SNSs have been considered the core of Web 2.0, we haven't been diligently discussing the importance and the impact of wikis on the Web world. Think about it. Which  one do you think is bigger? Wordpress or Wikipedia? In fact, Wikipedia is now so big that Google decided to create its own in Knol. (Of course, blogging is big and Google wants to do better by buying TNC--or at least I hope so  ) As you can see from the chart above, the need for wikis have gone way beyond that for blogs. Quite astonishing, isn't it?

Anyhow, the wiki market has been growing huge in the Asia-Pacific region. The chart tells us that the top queries for wiki are coming from none other than Japan, Singapore, and Australia. Quite astonishing, isn't it?

Springnote has been the lone Asian service in the wiki market, to my knowledge. It has positioned itself as a hybrid of a note-taking application and a wiki. The English version was launched less than a year ago, and it's already been covered by some major media entities, such as LifeHacker, ReadWriteWeb, and Mashable. In fact, I'm the one behind the official Springnote blog; you can probably tell how similar the tones of TechnoKimchi and the Springnote blog are to each other :)

Anyhow, (not because I'm the marketer but), Springnote really is an excellent service.

• It's a FREE Web application, making it accessible from anywhere,
• comes with 2 GB of file storage and unlimited amount of texts
• provides collaborative features by giving edit/view rights to the selected only
• supports great tech stuff, like Open ID Authentication, Open APIs, and XHTML.

How "Excellent" is it? If you guys can remember for a moment that I'm the first known full-time blogger in Korea running a network of blogs, Springnote is basically my CMS (Content Management System). I host many of my attachments and images in Springnote and even write most of my blogs in Springnote and port them to each blog.

Springnote just went through a major upgrade few hours ago, making it even a better serivce. It now comes with a view mode, designed for better content consumption and a better collaborative environment. You can learn more about the upgrade here.

So I strongly urge you guys to check it out. For one, you guys will be supporting a Web 2.0 application from Asia, but for two, you'll probably just purely love the application. (and for three, help me be a better marketer as well. ;) )

As for Japan, Singapore, and Australia beating US, UK, Canada in their search for wikis, maybe some of you guys can give me feedback on how it's happening and if there's any internal market growing in your region.

Like an experienced marketer, I'm gonna wrap this post with this: "This is your Springnote day!". Ok, I admit that was weak, but you get the point. :)

brought to you by

Many Korean web sites, ranging from internet banking sites to TV livecasting sites, mandate users to install Active X components (a small bit of extension program used by Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser) to use the service. Which means if you are a Firefox user in Korea, there are many websites that are quite integral to your life that you simply can't use.

For example, you cannot print public documents by accessing government websites on Firefox. Or, for that matter, you cannot even buy a Mac on a Mac - as the credit card transaction requires the installation of a security program that only exists as an Active X control for Internet Explorer. Want to buy a Mac from their online store? Get a PC.

-- Are you a Korean web user? You might have 100+ Active X's installed, Web 2.0 Asia

Professional Reporter #1: "Darn it, I've run out of ideas. What should I write?"
Professional Reporter #2: "I don't know. What are people saying around the Internet? Just report that they're saying it!"

·181 止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:16:56 ID:ZZ1pO5uL0 - 다음이 승엽님이야

·182 止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:16:56 ID:xJoecgtw0 - 흐흐흐흐 좋아좋아

·183 止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:16:57 ID:NqciCIW30 - 아웃 하나는 딴거네

·184 止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:16:58 ID:hDzCl3AY0 - 승엽 같은 것 바꿔

·186 ：止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:16:59 ID:YTHpw0AI0 - 못 봐주겠군

·188 ：止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:17:02 ID:qwIU3pyW0 - 그렇지, 하지만 유감인건 아웃카운트는 3개가 필요한거지.

·191 ：止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:17:02 ID:wYzZC3bQ0 - 이와세에겐 뭔가 불안함을 느껴

·192 ：止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:17:04 ID:gyZNfd2L0 - 벤치에 있는 일본선수들 위가 아픈 것 처럼 보여

·193 ：止まない雨は名無しさん：2008/08/22(金) 14:17:04 ID:YV6FbEP/0 - 이와세는 최고야

We just watced the game. We thought it was real cool. We feel great about it. And this is what Japanese/Chinese people are saying about the game on the Internet:
1) (some line in Japanese/Chinese) and (the translated Korean version)
2) (another line in Japanese/Chinese) and (the translated Korean version)
....
100) (another line in Japanese/Chinese) and (the translated Korean version)

Before I go on to talk about the portal-centric Internet landscape in Korea as I said in the last article, I decided to write a post on a different topic because the portal topic seems to cover too many areas, so I'll probably need some more time to think through. But before that, I'll give you guys something juicy again. Namely, "How to be a broadcasting jockey".

That's what all these livecasting citizen journalists are called. By Afreeca, they are officially named BJs. They are also called Street Journalists. The question is how do you live-broadcast while out in the public?

The key lies in Internet ubiquity. People live-upload video content through WiBro. And the setup looks like this:

You connect to the Internet through your WiBro modem like I did hundreds of times in the past; you capture the scene live with your webcam or better-quality camcorders connected to your notebook. You run some Afreeca applications on your notebook. That's it. You have your own real-time broadcasting station!!

Remember this is only one example of what Internet ubiquity can do for your country. Now, imagine what could happen when you have this many people out in the street holding candles; hundreds of them are BJs.

Reuters has an excellent coverage on the topic (via Futurize Korea):

But in this country, one of the most wired and technology savvy in the world, the month-long series of gatherings has also been a valuable testing ground for the latest communication devices, gadgets and websites.

From high-resolution camera phones to instant broadcasting software and water cannon-resistant camcorders, the latest advances in communications were in evidence during the five weeks since the protests began.

Many demonstrators rely on Internet forums to get information on rallying points, weather forecasts and riot police presence. With powerful camera phones, they are able to shoot photos and videos that they can instantly upload on Internet sites thanks to high-speed wireless technology.

It wasn't even a year ago when I had the Joost-on-highway experiment. Did I imagine what's happening right now could happen in less than 10 months? Heck, no! So there's goes my lack of imagination. OTL.

There's a reason why this blog is taglined Spicy Thoughts on Digital Generation in Asia. :)