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Walled Gardens of Web [koreatimes.co.kr]So what catapulted it into the country's top portal site? Among industry experts, there seems to be an almost unanimous consensus that it all started with the introduction of Knowledge iN, a knowledge search service that enables web users to ask questions or answer ones posted by other users.
...
Though the quality of its contents are sometimes questionable, Naver's Knowledge iN now has roughly 10 times more entries than Wikipedia. It is used by millions of Korean web users on any given day. Some people say Koreans are not addicted to the Internet but to Naver.
An interesting article. It's nothing new for some of us, but a great explanation of Naver's Knowledge iN search.
[edited by: bill at 5:42 am (utc) on Aug. 29, 2008]
[edit reason] see stickymail [/edit]
Anyway...here another article on Knowledge-In Search and googles failure in Korea so far....
(Nothing new around here, but here ya go...)
NHN makes Google the small fry in Korea [redorbit.com]
(only thing new there for me was google reported at 2.5% usage. Last I checked it was 2%. lol)
btw, Chrome, like I said with FF, is nothing here as well because of the heavy ActiveX dependency of the Korean internet. Until that changes its unlikely you'll any significant change in the browser industry here.
[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 2:29 am (utc) on Sep. 10, 2008]
[edited by: bill at 4:04 am (utc) on Sep. 11, 2008]
[edit reason] fix link [/edit]
An interesting paragraph fro the article you linked to:
One reason for Google's poor performance is the lack of abundant Web documents in Korean. Recognizing their advantage, NHN executives made concerted efforts to create their own content and build up Naver's database with partnerships with content owners. To keep its edge, NHN blocked rivals from accessing the trove. "Under such an environment, Google simply doesn't show relevant results appealing to local users despite its excellent search engine," says Wayne Lee, Internet analyst at brokerage Woori Investment & Securities.
Naver was very smart to keep their content to themselves.
