Naver’s monopoly challenged

Naver’s monopoly challenged

Local giant to cultivate collaborative ecosystem By Kang Ye-won Over the past 13 years, the local search giant like Naver has focused on providing Korean-language content and serving the local audience. Unlike Google which originally specialized as a search engine that acted as a conduit of existing Web content, Naver started from scratch to offer its own content and work with third-party content providers. “Naver’s business model has to do with Korea’s closed Internet ecosystem, which enabled the company to become the local powerhouse,” said Kim Jae-yeon, author of “Being Social Web.” “Google believes that as long as the search function works well, advertisers will come along and the business will automatically grow, whereas Naver has tried for ownership of as much content as possible, which it believes benefits the company as well as the users,” Kim said. In the late 1990s when Naver had just launched, only some 200,000 Korean language-based websites existed while the number of local Internet users snowballed thanks to the government’s strong push for nationwide broadband implementation. While the local dominance has enjoyed a monopoly across the sectors, global players like Google and Apple have adapted to the latest trends as Web and PC platforms expanded to mobile phones, tablet and apps. Also small startups with innovative ideas surged into the market competing head-to-head with the industry juggernauts or were bought by them for hefty prices. Just earlier this week, Facebook paid $1 billion for photo-sharing app Instagram, which was launched by two Stanford University graduates in October 2010. “It’s not until last year that Naver started to seriously look to bring its business to a global stage,” he said. Representatives of Naver were not available for comment. Slow segue to global stage Naver has recently made a shift in expanding to mobile apps in an attempt to improve its global presence, but experts say it still lacks original ideas and quality content to gain competitiveness. Moves by NHN in acquiring me2day, a Korean version of Twitter and launching Naver Talk, a mobile messenger app like Kakao Talk, both fell short of catching up to the existing leaders. “Does that mean Naver has no future? I think its latest app called Line is gaining momentum ... depending on its success this year, we will be able to tell whether the company can truly reform,” Kim said. Last March when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, NHN app makers took an idea from families and friends who relied on mobile messenger services to locate their loved ones from a distance. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Naver’s Line is for a closed circle of people whom users can add by phone number or a Naver login ID. It gained 2 million registered users worldwide in eight months, the firm said in a statement. Good content and global partnerships are the two areas of improvement for Naver, said Thomas Kang, an analyst with Strategy Analytics. “To create a thriving platform, there has to be abundant content but Naver doesn’t have the same relationships it enjoys with domestic partners, with those overseas in news and media,” Kang said. That is why a strong partnership with content providers matters more for Korean Web portals that have a search model more similar to Yahoo!, which has a strength in its aggregate of a wide variety of news and other media content rather than a sophisticated search engine like Google. A different business model is another reason for the local company to distinguish its strategy from Google. On the domestic mobile platform, Google’s search engine has secured the No. 1 spot ahead of Naver and Daum. However, local media companies argue it is due to a default setting on Android cellphones and Google allegedly struck a deal with the handset makers. Last year, NHN and Daum Corporation filed a complaint with the Korean Fair Trade Commission claiming Google restricted Android phone makers from preloading local search sites on smartphones, thus discouraging users to switch to a different Web search page. Regulation Korean players also criticized the government’s stringent regulations, applied differently to domestic and foreign companies. For instance, online users have to give in their real names and ID numbers to sign up for local portal sites in order to write a comment or join an online community. The rule doesn’t apply to foreign companies such as Google and Facebook. The Korean government also restricts Naver’s map service from showing a clear satellite view on key places like the Blue House for security reasons, but again Google Maps gets away with it, according to Moon Jeong-seong, a senior researcher at non-profit organization Kinternet. “It clearly hurts a level playing field between local and foreign companies,” Moon said. The government started to lift the real-name rule on several public websites in March, using different methods of identification such as credit card numbers. By August, it plans to fully implement the policy to all Web pages. But critics argue that such policy is enforced at the convenience of the regulators rather than for the purpose of protecting cyber bullying as the government claims. “It is clear that this kind of Internet regulation only hurts the domestic industries. How can we expect to see a company like PayPal emerge in Korea when the regulators still insist on the use of Active X, an inefficient online transaction system, which it has been proven several times that it doesn’t fit the open Web and does not promise online security, either,” said Kim. Despite the hostile environment that stifles the Korean Internet industry, as local firms claim, at the end of the day it’s innovation and open platforms that are key to their global success, said Kang. “Because Naver has been the No. 1 player domestically made it to stay in its comfort zone for too long, it needs to break out of it,” he said.

7 lawmakers plagiarized dissertations

7 lawmakers plagiarized dissertations

By Yun Suh-young The Korea Progressive Academy Council (KPAC), an association of 22 academic organizations, has confirmed that seven newly-elected lawmakers engaged in various types of plagiarism in their dissertations. The lawmakers-elect to the 19th National Assembly who included plagiarized parts include five from the ruling Saenuri Party — Kang Ki-youn, Chung Woo-taek, Yeom Dong-yeol, Yoo Jae-jung and Shin Kyung-rim — and Chung Se-kyun of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP). Also on the list is Moon Dae-sung, an independent. “We have confirmed that the dissertations of the seven were plagiarized during our inspection,” the group announced Sunday during a press conference in central Seoul. Examples of plagiarism detected ranged from copying a sentence to copying a paragraph without citation. The plagiarism was categorized into nine categories based on the degree of seriousness such as “simple plagiarism” to “duplication of work.” Other categories included pasting several pieces of work, copying ideas, redundant publication and manipulation of data. They were classified based on the 2008 guideline from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, 2009 research ethics guidelines published by the KPAC and 2011 research ethics code set by the National Science and Technology Commission. The lawmaker found to have plagiarized to the most serious degree was Moon Dae-sung, a Korean member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and former lawmaker-elect of ruling Saenuri Party who resigned from the party last month due to the allegations of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis. It turned out he had also plagiarized in his master’s thesis. “The elected lawmakers failed to uphold, throughout the research process, the core values a researcher must fulfill. These are honesty, accuracy, fairness, openness, social responsibility, respect towards the research target, and carefulness. The lawmakers therefore violated research ethics,” the KPAC members said. The group lashed out at the seven lawmakers saying that in advanced countries, lawmakers who plagiarize are considered swindlers. “We don’t expect them to have the highest level of morality that we would demand from leaders of society. But how can the law made by these legislators have social authority if they lack the minimum requirement of civic consciousness we would expect in a lawmaker?”

LG Electronics to roll out new Google TV on May 17

Korean firm to unveil Internet-enabled TV set on Android platform
LG Electronics plans to roll out its new Google TV for the U.S. market on May 17, strengthening its alliance with the U.S.-based software giant, according to an LG executive.

Ro Seog-ho, executive vice president of the firm’s TV business unit, said it will finish producing the 47-inch and 55-inch 3-D capable TV sets running on Google’s upgraded Android platform 2.0 next week and have it ready for U.S. consumers in the week of May 21.

“The new Google TV will be released beginning in the U.S. market with the completion of manufacturing in its Mexico plant slated for May 17,” said Ro in an interview with a pool of reporters.

A model shows LG Electronics’ new Google TV at an electronics trade show in Las Vegas in January. (LG Electronics)

According to the company’s plan, it will display the new TV set in New York through U.S. retail giant Best Buy with plans to expand into other regions like Europe and Brazil. However, it is still uncertain whether LG’s Google TV will be launched in Korea.

Together with the new TV set, the company will also feature a gesture-based remote controller which comes with a QWERTY keyboard. The firm’s Google TV was first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier in January.

The move to roll out the new TV later this month indicates that LG Electronics will become the first to launch the new second generation of Internet-enabled Google TVs, a move expected to be followed by other industrial giants such as Samsung Electronics, Sony and Vizio. It is also seen as a move for California-based Google to widen its alliance to fight the forthcoming Apple TV.

Sony and Logitech previously unveiled Google TVs in the retail market last year, but ended up seeing disappointing sales with its initial partner Logitech later abandoning the technology.

As a result, Google is hoping that LG, the world’s second-largest TV maker, will boost its presence in the TV industry and increase sales with its value-added features like the 3-D function.

Backed by its 3-D enabled smart TVs and the new Google TV, LG plans to take up more than 25 percent of the global 3-D TV market this year. The company has already recorded the No. 1 position in five countries, including Brazil and Mexico in the first quarter of this year.

In the meantime, analysts here gave mixed views for the to-be-featured Google TV of LG Electronics.

“It’s a positive factor that LG is forming a close relationship with Google on top of news that the firm will become the third firm to manufacture the next Nexus smartphone,” said Noh Geun-chang, a senior analyst at HMC Securities. “Not just looking at the Google TV, the stronger partnership between the two indicates that Google has acknowledged LG’s technology and accepted the Korean firm as its partner.”

On the other hand, Kim Uno, senior analyst at Hanwha Securities, maintained a negative view on the launch of the Internet-enabled smart TV, stating that the global TV market is highly saturated and unable to produce increased demand.

“The TV makers are manufacturing the Google TV to create added value onto their premium TV sets, but I believe a limit exists considering the TV replacement rate,” he said, adding that the industry may see a downturn ― going into the minus range in terms of growth ― this year or the next.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldm.com)