If you are Korean or have been living here for a while, chances should be high that you are a Cyworld user - especially if you fall into the 18 to 30 year-old age category. Launched in 2001 by four KAIST university graduates, then sold to SK Communications in 2003 for 8.5 million, the Cyworld phenomenon has exploded in Korea. Almost 90% of South Koreans in their 20s - 30s are cyworld users which also means that 25% of the total population of the entire country is Cyworld user. As of 2005, there were 20 million users in Korea alone. In fact, the US version of Cyworld has recently been launched and by next year the German version will start. Who knows where else in the world it will expand to? As with any craze or fad, will this Cyworld phenomenon just fade away?

What made has made Cyworld so popular is that it is a communicative tool for our generation to keep up with social networks and to let every one of them know what is going on in your life. Cyworld is a portal that is basically a "live journal" - once you enter the site you are transported to (literally) a "relationship world". However, unlike the US portals such as MySpace, Cyworld uses the signature "minihompy" which allows the user to customise her/his page by uploading photos, writings and music. Users can purchase items and/or gifts for their own minihompy or for their friends' using the cyworld currency, dotori (acorns). Cyworld’s music service, which broadcasts music for visitors to homepages has been wildly popular in Korea selling some six million songs a month. Last year, SK reported a sales of $160 million and a profit of $25 million. 50% of that revenue came from Cyworld and there are 400,000 items on sale today. You can also use mileage points from your mobile to purchase items as well. So merchandise is plenty and on-going promotions are luring people to purchase more to decorate their minihompy's.

Cyworld has made connections and individual lives more transparent. Apart from being merely a tool to socialise, re-connect to old friends and maintain relationships (similar to the US based Friendster), Cyworld has also been a tool for people who want to date. It is not as rampant as US sites where people are more prone to meeting "strangers". Here in Seoul, there might be times where you will go to a friends' homepage and browse around for date. "A few of my friends have met their girlfriends/boyfriends from Cyworld. They search their friends homepage and if they see someone who interests them, they will ask for a blind date. It's not really a blind date because whoever is requesting actually knows about that person indirectly. This just minimizes the risk of having a "bad first-impression", says Kevin Cho, a 24-year old student from Hanyang University. However, due to the transparency of the site, privacy issues arise. "My girlfriend had a privacy issue because a stalker would visit her homepage and leave messages every hour. He even went on to her friend's homepage and started writing garbage", says Cho. Some people try to solve the privacy issue by changing the name to a specific ID so it is impossible to search without knowing the ID. However, that person risks the possibility of an old friend in finding him/her. Another problem is not wanting certain people such as ex-boyfriends/girlfriends to know too much about what's going on in your life. "You just would rather keep your personal events to yourself and your selected friends", says Tayhee Kim, a 30 year old who recently got married and moved to San Francisco. "But you can avoid this situation because Cyworld has a function that can prevent this", says Kim. Recently, SK came up with a function called "secret visitor". Basically, it allows you to control to some extent who can come and see your page. Then there are those who are more reluctant to meet potential dates on Cyworld, relying it on as simply an exchange of updates/happenings between friends. For 20 year-old Mi-hyun Kang, an exchange student in Beijing, Cyworld is all about keeping in contact with her friends - both in Korea and abroad. "As I'm in Beijing, I like to upload photos to show my friends what I'm doing and I enjoy leaving and checking messages on the "bangmeunglok", which is similar to a blog. I don't use it really to meet new friends - it's just to keep my social network strong". As for strangers who might have a peep at her homepage, Kang is not bothered - I don't really care about the people who don't know me - I just do it for my friends who do know me", says Kang.
Since kicking off in 2001, the Cyworld mania has died down a fraction. We don't hear as much anymore about "cyholics", however, there are definitely those out there who spend more than several hours a day (even while at work) surfing through people's homepages. Now, it seems the average for people to check their Cyworld account is once or twice a day. "Sometimes, bosses log on to check in on what's going on in their employees lives", says Kim. It is a natural human instinct for us to be curious and sometimes outright nosy when it comes to knowing what's going on in other people's lives. So, Cyworld will continue to thrive - not only in Korea but also in other countries. We will see how the US versions does. Reports have predicted that Cyworld will only do well here (the Chinese and Japanese launches haven't taken off as expected). Cyworld gives Koreans a chance to create their own world , but more importantly, a private world in which to share with only those they choose. Relationship is key here. "Koreans like to keep to themselves mostly and tend to stick to their own group of friends. If they do branch out and meet new people, they do so cautiously without revealing too much at the beginning. Cyworld gives people a chance to become familiar with each other’s friends before meeting in real life", says Lee, a 32 year old Cyworld user. "It has been great for Korea since we live in a world where we thrive on maintaining relationships and acquiring new ones". And with that, we hope that this craze that started in Korea will hit other countries as well - making this a univesral phenomena.

[A Cyworld anecdote]
"My girlfriend came back from London and found out that her bag was switched with someone else's bag. She was planning to go back to Busan the very next day so she needed to find it ASAP. I searched in the bag and found out a copy of the passport of the owner. The name, photo, and birthday was obviously in the passport. So I went into Cyworld and found her homepage in one minute, dropped a line in her homepage, as well as ten other friends of hers so that I could get a call back quickly. Within 20 minutes ,a friend of the owner saw the message and had the owner call my phone. We secured the bag the very next morning and my girlfriend could go to Busan without a problem. I think this is a good example that shows how Cyworld can connect people" - 25 year old student.


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