Interesting article on the international nature and growth of social communities.
While companies like MySpace and Facebook have dominated the American social networking scene, several homegrown sites in Asia have been independently experiencing the same kind of success. Now, East and West are trading places.
Cyworld, a South Korean phenomenon since its inception seven years ago, is not only wooing the tech-savvy youth in the United States but also has spread out in China, Japan and Taiwan and is negotiating with potential partners elsewhere, according to Henry Chon, chief executive of the U.S. branch of Cyworld, which is owned by SK Communications in Seoul.
I’ve been fascinated with the further niche and local flavoring of social communities for a while now. My former boss at LEGO lived in Denmark and his daughter showed me the Danish, teen-based social network she frequented. Only 50,000 people… small by MySpace standards, fantastic by their own standards.
