Our man at the NY Times, Choe Sang-Hun, has written a good article on why Google.com is not popular in Korea but, lo, he also describes something of the psychology of why Naver is popular instead of Google. Choe writes:
In this country, where more than 70 percent of a population of 48 million use the Internet, most of them with high-speed connections, people do not just want information when they log on; they want a sense of community and the kind of human interaction provided by Naver’s “Knowledge iN” real-time question-and-answer platform.
So where the tall, tombstone-style apartment has replaced the village of the sixties that so many left when they came to Seoul, instead of meeting around a village well or at the village collective house, many find a sense of community online, through sites like Naver or Daum.
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In many ways, in overly competitive (insecure?) Korea, it is much more important to be known as being intrinsically smarter or better in some way than simply knowing how to get the answer efficiently. That is why, in part, Koreans are loath to admit they don’t something in public – although this trait has certainly diminished during my thirty years association with Korea.
But to restate the same in the affirmative, there is unbridled Korean joy in being recognized an expert – perhaps more here than in most countries. The fact that Naver and Daum recognize use expertise with a rating system is a brilliant marketing scheme that really resonates with many Koreans.
Recently, when I chanced upon the Korean president of Blizzard Korea, the online gaming software industry leader, I asked him what is the reason for Warcraft being such a phenomenal success in Korea. His replied, “It’s easy to understand. The game rates the ability of each player and ranks them worldwide. Koreans love to be ranked – to be recognized as being the best in something.”
So for many Koreans, simply tapping in a giant, distributed globally distributed data base with a super search engine is b-o-r-i-n-g, when one can share information and be recognized. Foreign consumer marketers would do well to take note of this.
I think that being recognized online is sometimes refereed to as increasing your e-Peen size. The exact meaning of e-Peen can be left up to the discretion of the reader. Google needs to develop a g-Peen application.
For what it’s worth, the first site I check out in the morning after my blog is Naver.com.
why is choe always “our man” at the NY Times?
Choe Sang-Hun is “our man at the Times” because the Marmot’s Blog placed Choe at the Times through careful indoctrination and training so that he could type with two fingers and pass himself off as a journalist. After years of careful planning, it seems to have paid off handsomely.
This is just the beginning.
Just so there’s no confusion, R. Elgin is joking.
LOL . . . really Robert.
I think it has also something to do with Koreans being much more receptive and tolerant to advertisement than Westerners.
This totally explains why I can’t get people in my office to do searches on Google–they’d rather ask some Korean guy in Busan who sells lotto tickets than check the scary foreign site with no Flash on it….
“Koreans love to be ranked – to be recognized as being the best in something.”
Dingdingdingding.
Case in point: their obsession with college/university rankings (which is really the ranking obsession compounded by education obsession and prestige obsession).
When my school (Penn) was ranked #4 (ahead of Stanford) in US News, the Korean kids realigned their “dream school” hierarchies overnight. Now I love my alma mater to pieces (and actually chose it over Stanford) but few people would argue it has a reputation equal to that of Stanford, let alone above.
That is, few people outside of the Korean peninsula
Yep, Korean love ranking system. I should really say, it’s part to blame is education system in Korean government and so called jae-bul from big corporation for selecting only from top educational institutions. So everyone strive for the best colleges to attend in Korea and you only have limited space. Something gotta change, hope soon.