Here

and alive ... :)

Symposium at SNU... and because everyone needs a little pick-me-up

I'm currently prepping for an international conference at SNU that takes place tomorrow.
"Digital Convergence and Institutional/Cultural Changes of Public Broadcasting," where I will be a panel discussant.

2008 SNU-UT- CUHK- NTU- TU- Symposium
서울대-동경대-홍콩중문대-대만국립대-청화대 학술심포지엄

Digital Convergence and Institutional/Cultural Changes of Public Broadcasting
디지털융합시대 공영방송의 제도와 문화의 변화

Date / Nov. 21~22, 2008

Venue / Heekwan Memorial Hall, College of Social Sciences (16-111),
Seoul National University
서울대 사회과학대학 희관기념홀

Organized by BK21 Digital Media and Communication in Korea
언론정보학과 BK21 사업단
Institute of Communication Research 언론정보연구소
Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, SNU 서울대 산학협력단

Sponsored by Korea Communications Commission 한국방송통신위원회

In the meantime... something to entertain...
Careful. Your head might explode.

Pepero Day - 11/11

Today is Pepero Day, and if you didn't know it before, in Korea you'll notice the Pepero gift packs for sale in the weeks preceding today. Very different from what 11/11 means in the West (Remembrance Day).

In the past, I have seen people exchanging boxes of Pepero, and bakeries selling full-length baguettes dipped in chocolate (because they look like huge Peperos, of course). Yep.

It's a little scary how well the marketing worked on this one, though not surprising in considering the terrain.

**UPDATE: Some shots today of Korean pop icon Rain being, quoth POPSEOUL, "generous with his magic sticks." And, -only- if you're the immature (tsk tsk) type who laughed at that will you find the running Rain joke funny at all...uhuh.
Studying popular culture has its hazards.

Cyworld tanks in the USA

So, Cyworld has not made it in America. Story in Korean from hankyung.com here>>

In one of Web 2.0 Asia's latest posts titled, "Cyworld pulling plugs from the US," Chang muses about the cause of Korea's #1 social networking site failing in the localization effort for the United States market.

What can I say, except that (in the style of Stephen Colbert)...

I CALLED IT.

A deeper look at OECD numbers

From Mark Goldberg's blog, a deeper look into the OECD numbers on broadband penetration in which he talks about South Korea's situation on what counts towards rankings.

From his entry:

One would think that homes with computers would be the asymptote for broadband penetration - why would a household subscribe to broadband if you don't have access to a computer?

Well, apparently in Korea it doesn't work that way. In fact, 20% of their broadband enabled households have no access to computers.

What is going on there?

When you dig deeper, it turns out that Korea's household broadband data includes broadband enabled mobile phones. Since virtually every phone in Korea is a 3G phone, every household with a mobile phone is scored as having broadband access.

Sometimes, you need to scratch beneath the surface.

He states in the comments that apples are indeed being compared to apples in his analysis and asserts that raw rankings and numbers are irrelevant without analysis and context.

Raw rankings and numbers are manipulable, and it is tough to get one's hands dirty to actually find out what is happening on the ground. That's why I'm here.