Video: What makes Cyworld? Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression, and "Peeping"

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Thanks for the feedback from the first video we published, all the three comments suggested we do more.

Lars Schwenk, General Manager of Cyworld Europe shared with me what it takes to be a community, we were at Forrester's Consumer forum in Barcelona.

If you're not familiar with Cyworld that have heavy penetration in South Korea, (50% of Koreans is a member -- and that 95 percent of its target youth market is active -Marketwatch) where it was birthed.  Find out his four components of community:  Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and what he calls "Peeping".

I asked my Twitter network (over 1700 of them) what questions to ask Lars, and David Berkowitz wanted to know what North Americans could learn from Asia's deployment of Cyworld. 

Cyworld launched in North America yet adoption has been very low, I learned from my travels that social technographics vary by culture, so to simply re skin a website for regions doesn't work. 

Marketers must understand the people who they want to serve first, one size does not fit all.

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Comments

[Darian Patchin]

As the new VP of Product Marketing at Cyworld US, I totally agree. A simple localization/translation of an existing service (especially as intricate and complicated) as Cyworld will not suffice to gain significant market share.

Here in the US we are re-tooling the Cyworld site, narrowing our target market, and focusing on meeting their needs. Stay tuned for new developments over the next several months.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Thanks Darian for this, keep us updated.