By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Social networking seems to be the biggest craze of the day among global Internet users as they flock to sites such as MySpace and Facebook to hook up with old friends.
It is entirely a different picture in Korea, however, where the creators of Cyworld, the Web community site that started it all, take another drag of their cigarettes.
Not so long ago, Cyworld was the place to go for Korean Internet users, undoubtedly the most successful subscriber-based service ever with 20 million plus members.
However, as the more sophisticated Internet users started moving off to blogs or other community sites with cooler features, updating a Cyworld page is now about as popular as wearing white socks with black shoes.
The demise in the popularity of Cyworld is reflected mostly in its efforts to transform itself into a full-fledged Internet portal that provides search, e-mail, news and entertainment as well as the social networking services that made it famous.
In fact, the main page of Cyworld (www.cyworld.com) is now hardly distinguishable from that of portal sites Naver (www.naver.com) and Daum (www.daum.net) with a search bar, news stories and advertisements pushed to the top and the link to the Cyworld pages sitting quietly in the corner.
``Cyworld has allowed itself to be outdated,'' said an official at a blog-tool developing firm, who preferred to remain anonymous.
``Aside from the cute, cartoon characters and the concept of `dotori' cyber currency, it's hard to say Cyworld came up with anything distinctive. And at a time when bloggers are becoming accustomed to lavish visual design, it's really not that interesting anymore to squint your eyes to read what's on the smallish Cyworld windows,'' he said.
SK Communications, the operator of Cyworld, had tried to prevent its flagship service becoming an old fad.
Desperate to reverse the decline in traffic, the company introduced a new version of Cyworld, dubbed ``Home 2,'' last year, but drew minimal response.
The service, now renamed ``Cyworld Blog'' had attempted to find a hybrid between social networking services and personal blogs, or Internet diaries that are the trend of the moment.
However, critics argued that the company only blurred Cyworld's identity as a community site, which relies on existing personal relationships, unlike blogs which attracts a mass of Internet users gathering on specific interests.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Cyworld has become to SK Communications what emails have become to Daum ― tools that gave the companies millions of subscribers, but failed to present a way to make money off them.
The competition in the Internet industry starts and ends with search-related revenue, which makes blogs an attractive business model as they generate quality traffic based on specific interests, which makes them easier for advertisers to target.
However, the content on social network sites, due to their casual nature and isolation from the open Web, doesn't contribute as much to search revenue.
This makes SK Communications' attempts to strengthen search and blog services understandable. And since converting Cyworld into a portal site the company has been enjoying a slight increase in traffic.
According to market research firm Korean Click, Cyworld is the third most popular choice among Internet users as the starting site for their Web browsers, behind Naver and Daum and ahead of Yahoo (www.yahoo.co.kr), meaning that more people are starting to use its search services.
However, No. 3 doesn't sound so intriguing when it represents just a share of 6 percent. Naver, the green, mean machine of the Korean Internet industry accounted for nearly 46 percent of starting pages, followed by Daum with about a 24 percent share.