With over 18 million users out of a 48 million population, with 33 million Internet users, Cyworld is South Korea's leading social network / blog / online community.
Created in 1999 when the online advertising market was not enough to sustain a website, and when valuations of online communities was unheard of, Cyworld had to come up with innovative business models, services and pioneered many functions which are gradually being "rediscovered" elsewhere.
7 years after its start, Cyworld is still a social phenomenon in South Korea and an extremely profitable business. It has started to expand in key markets where it faces challenges not much from competition but rather from the fact that the IT infrastructure, users' maturity with online services, payment systems and mobile networks prevent it to deliver its full experience.
Cyworld Worldwide
- Cyworld Korea
- Where it all started
- Cyworld US
- The US stripped down version
- Cyworld China
- Chinese version with already 2 million users
- Cyworld Japan
- Japanese version
Articles about Cyworld
- Communities Dominate Brands, 2006.9
- Cyworld is like MySpace 2 years into future
- International Herald Tribune, 2006.9
- Social networking sites keep their local flavor as they go global
- FT.com, 2006.8
- Korean site tackles might of MySpace
- CNET, 2006.8
- How Cyworld could trump MySpace
- CNET, 2006.8
- Is Cyworld the next MySpace? (video)
- CNN, 2006.7
- Cyworld ready to attack MySpace
- TechCrunch, 2006.7
- Massive Korean Social Network CyWorld Launches in US
- GigaOM, 2006.7
- Cyworld: Good Morning America
- International Business Times, 2006.7
- Cyworld lands on MySpace
- The Register, 2006.6
- Name a website with 22bln pages impressions?
- Communities Dominate Brands, 2005.12
- CyWorld: When Habbo Hotel meets Blogging
- Business Week, 2005.9
- E-society: My world is Cyworld
- SmartMobs, 2005.8
- Cyworld and 3.8bln page impressions a week
- Wired News, 2005.8
- Koreans find secret cybersauce
- SmartMobs, 2004.10
- Come and see me in my hompy
- Read/Write Web, 2006.8
- Tok Korean Web 2.0 Apps
Our published report about Cyworld
- "Inside Cyworld"
- - How did a single social network bring over US$60 million in 2005 with almost no advertising revenues?
- How more impressive this result is considering it happened in a country with only 33 million Internet users (about 1/6 of the US) and a GDP/capita about half the US' average?
- How real-name registration policy is making sense in building trust-based information sharing?
- How did a small 20-people startup generate an online phenomenon?
And many more answers in our 150+ pages detailed report covering:
- Service history
- Detailed description of functions with numerous screenshots
- Revenue models
- Mobile application
- Exclusive interviews of Cyworld's founder, Korean IT professionals and Cyworld users
And information on identified best practices that can benefit SNS services and communities worldwide:
- How real name policy dramatically increases users' trust and service value
- Successful business models which are not over-reliant on advertising
- Innovative and popular extensions to mobile services, e-business and offline activities
- Multiple payment systems to overcome the monetization barrier
Inside Cyworld
Blog on Cyworld
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byInformation from SK Telecom
- SK Communications
- The SK Telecom subsidiary running Cyworld
- SK Telecom's English PR page
- Main PR page
- Mobile Cyworld Users Hit One Million Mark, 2005.8
- Mobile Cyworld has become a heavy contributor to SK Telecom's data revenues.
- SK Telecom Reveals New Service Programs, 2003.12
- Some initiatives around Cyworld
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