Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
App developers capitalize on fine dust pollution
From left, Ha Chee-hoon, CEO of LifeOverflow, Lee Byung-yup, CEO of B.U.S Creative and Park Min-woo, manager of SK Telecom's home business unit, speak during a press conference at Google Startup Campus Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of Google Korea
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Mobile app developers here are capitalizing on pollution with their fine dust-related services as a growing number of people are worrying about the worsening air quality, they said Thursday.
The app developers said they have seen increasing usage of their fine dust monitoring services over the past few years. Though they are benefiting from the deteriorating air quality, the developers added they are also waiting for the day when people can enjoy clean air and don't need to use their services.
The fine dust app developers include LifeOverflow CEO Ha Chee-hoon, who developed fine dust monitoring app MiseMise; B.U.S Creative CEO Lee Byung-yup, who created another fine dust information app HouHou; and Park Min-woo, manager of SK Telecom's home business unit, who developed fine dust measuring service Everyair.
The MiseMise app is the most popular fine dust monitoring app here, with more than 5 million downloads.
Ha said he was able to receive such a positive response as his firm tried to employ a clear design language so that users would be able to check the fine dust level within a second.
“I decided to develop a fine dust monitoring app in 2015 as many weather forecasting apps failed to show the information clearly. So I focused on displaying fine dust information using simple icons,” Ha said at Google Startup Campus Seoul.
Google Korea said worsening air pollution here has led to more people using fine dust-related apps. It said the number of downloads of fine dust apps via its Google Play app store were at 2.8 million in the first quarter of 2019, a 55.6 percent increase from the same period in 2017.
Its Google Trend data also showed the interest in the fine dust issue peaked in March when the nation was choked by fine dust for a record seven straight days.
Lee, who has been operating his own popular fine dust monitoring application HouHou, said his app has been well-received by users because of its mascot.
“We have been providing a push notification service to alert people of the air quality level. The download number recently hit a million mark. More than 75 percent of users of our app are women and we presume this is because we are using a cute mascot,” Lee said.
While the two services are using weather information provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration, SK Telecom's Everyair service collects and shares air quality data using internet of things (IoT) sensors installed at the mobile carriers' retail stores throughout the country.
“We provide information about the fine dust status collected by IoT sensors. To provide more precise data, we also attached IoT sensors to 500 Korea Yakult yogurt delivery carts. Currently more than 3,000 IoT sensors are collecting air quality data,” Park said.
“Since we launched the Everyair service in October 2018, we have received positive responses from users for providing accurate fine dust status reports. But we also hope for the day when people don't need to use our app thanks to improved air quality,” he added.