Cyworld is an Internet service that people can create their own home pages called ‘mini-hompy (homepage)’.
People can upload unlimited photos, documents and even videos these days. It is a social network that is similar to The Facebook. People can create their own avatars with their own choices, for example, hairstyle, shape of faces and clothes as well. Cyworld has other functions not only offers mini-hompy but also other activities to communicate with other members. There are ‘Cyworld Club’, ‘Paper’ and ‘Dotori’.
The Cyworld Club is Cyworld’s communities that are made by Cyworld’s members. Anyone can make the clubs and members can join the clubs if they have interests. The Paper is a blog of Cyworld. It is different from mini-hompy because the Paper is more for public rather than private. Through the Paper, members can share the information about certain topics or issues. Finally the Dotori is cyber money that can be used only in Cyworld and its members have to buy the credit to use. They can pay it through their mobile phones or credit card. With Dotori, they can buy music, wallpaper for their own mini-hompy, and they can give Dotori for friend’s birthday present as well. Without Dotori, people cannot decorate their own mini-hompies.
“Up to 90% of South Korean under the age of 20 are reported to be registered on Cyworld.” (Kirkpatrick, 2006)
Cyworld is the phenomenon in South Korea and it happens within only less than 4 years. It is a massive social network among younger people and even older people these days. There was only Korean version of Cyworld before but now there are international versions of Cyworld such as US, Japan, Taiwan, China and Vietnam. The format of international Cyworld has almost as Korean Cyworld’s but the only difference is they all use their own languages.
Young Koreans are addicted to Cyworld and they prefer communicating with their friends in Cyworld rather than offline out of Cyworld. Most of them have their own communities in Cyworld as well. They make friends in Cyworld and they actually communicate with people in online world that is Cyworld. Cyworld is not just a website that people can check their emails, messages or read others’ mini-hompies. People actually communicate with others within the Cyworld and ‘doing Cyworld’ is one of the essential daily routine for young Koreans.
They would like to check their mini-hompies and others’ almost everyday or even every hour. The reason for this they feel that they belong the communication and communities. Cyworld is very important community and communication space for young Koreans in these days.
(The example of ‘mini-hompy’ –my mini-hompy)
Cyworld is a social-networking service and it allows people to communicate with others in cyber space. People create the communities in on-line space and they communicate within it. Cyworld offers mini-hompy (homepage) to everyone who register to Cyworld. Cyworld allows people to communicate with others in on-line spaces easily and individually rather than just sending emails, messages, creating websites or blogs. Cyworld is a space for communication.
Cyworld’s mini-hompy is already set for everyone when people register and they do not need any HTML skills or other technical knowledge to start and run their homepages. Compare with other digital communication methods such as blogging, Cyworld is easy to use for everyone. Actually Cyworld was not easy to use before like these days’ simple system of using mini-hompy. However it has been changed and improved technically for several years. Finally it attracts people to come into the Cyworld because it becomes easy to use for people. I think the social- networking service has to be easy and simple to use for people rather than only for ‘techno-savvy’.
