1) A decision to require Web readers to use their real identities when posting articles online on Internet news sites is sparking concerns over privacy and free speech. What is your view on this?

While there’s been a great number of occasions where anonymity caused lots of real world problems in Korea, I don’t think the real identity regulation will be the cure for all. There will be lots of new problems springing from this kind of approach: freedom of speech will be threatened in many ways as there’ll be lots of people unable to honestly expressing their opinions. Privacy is obviously even a bigger concern. Making your real name up there won’t naturally create more responsible comments online. It’ll reduce both good and bad behaviors online.  I’d say rather urging and educating many Internet users and companies to create an environment where people will be more responsible will eventually pay out.

2) What are some of the restrictions that the Korean online community is facing which prevents for further development in social media?

Practical applications, like flickr of del.icio.us, aren’t really taking off in Korea. Most of the popular applications except search are about making sites people-friendly. It’s social nature of the Web users in Korea, which I believe need some change.

3) What impact does citizen journalism have on the social media arena in Korea? How are sites like News 2.0 driving change?

Unfortunately, News 2.0 isn’t actually doing particularly well in Korea. OhMyNews has also lost its brightest shining moments as well. Online media has been completely concentrated around portals, like Naver and Daum, where both mainstream media and citizen-based media (often called UCC-User Created Content) are both very strong.

4) How powerful are Internet mobs in Korea? Does the “Dog Poop Girl” controversy have any consequences?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6112754.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html

We actually have seen incidents like Dog Poop Girl so many times that many people are almost numb to such things happening. People carry around digital cameras and camcorders all the time that you basically have eyes and ears everywhere. People sometimes try to act more responsibly out in public since they know the horrifying and tremendous consequences of things spreading so quickly online. Often people take for granted how (private) things can be discovered so easily. It’s happening at a greater scale and there isn’t much that can stop it from happening, I think.

5) How are Korean businesses using Web 2,0  to their advantages? Please highlight an example. For example, how are businesses leveraging on Naver?

The best case is obviously Naver Knowledge-iN, which has used user participation to answer other users' questions. This mechanism eventually made Naver the Wikipedia + Google of Korea. We have seen a very high level of participation among the Web users in Korea across many areas. However, Internet companies, especially portals, have been accused of not being particularly keen at opening up their services to the masses.

6) Why is the Korea online community so advanced in terms of using social networking sites(e.g. CyWorld) and Web 2.0 applications? Does Korean Culture or Government play a part in this?

It’s mainly two things: a great broadband connection (this is the govenment part) and a culture where everyone just loves flocking together. Unlike MySpace, Cyworld is much about “decorating” your own space with lots of fancy stuff, like avatars and virtual items. That’s played a great deal in the development of services like Cyworld.

7) How different is the Korean online community different from other communities in terms of internet behavior with regard to social networking sites?

The active Web participants in Korea in general are much younger in contrast to other countries, especially the Western ones. So we see a Web that is a lot more social and entertainment-oriented than heavy and more serious one in the West. Lots of bloggers in Korea only write about travelling, food, photography, relationships, or games while many in U.S., for example, would write about business, tech, and media.

8) At the moment, what are new exciting Web 2.0 developments taking place in the Korean Online Community?

There’s been a good number of venture startups putting efforts into developing the new “web 2.0” services in Korea. As mentioned above, the Web in Korea has been greatly concentrated around portals. While there has not been too many great success stories among those startups yet, many portals are slowly moving in the direction of finally distributing more traffic to outside of the portals. I see it as a great sign of the Korean Web moving in the right direction. The Web was never meant to be so concentrated.

9) What are the signs that the lines between mainstream media and social media are blurring?

Daum, one of the major portals in Korea, has started a service named “Blogger News”, where it’s a combination of Digg and OhMyNews. It’s trying to find the right balance between a completely user-based quality news and professional journalism. Many of the content sites, including blogs, video sites, and picture sites, are also displaying and leading traffic to both mainstream content and user generated content. What we often see is the social media content generated off one big mainstream news article.