By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Internet companies are competing to bring the real world to the desktop, but it bears further watching whether the new digital maps will be a license to print money.
The country's Internet industry is ruled by the big, green giant NHN, which controls nearly 80 percent of the search market through Naver (www.naver.com), and smaller players are now hoping that an early start in map services will help them gain a foothold.
Naver can perhaps afford to be patient, waiting for the market to grow before using its dominant presence to pounce on it. However, NHN chief executive Choi Hwi-young recently told reporters that the company won't be too far behind, expecting to release its map services in January or February, and as usual, doesn't expect to settle for second place.
``We are confident that our map services will change the game that is currently led by Daum, Google and Yahoo,'' Choi said. Although Choi declined to detail the specifics of Naver's map service, industry sources say that NHN has already signed a deal with a Taiwanese company to source satellite imagery.
Naver is already offering ``Photo Street,'' which provides street images of popular urban areas and allows viewers to directly call selected shops through the site's Web phone. The portal is expected to blend its street view services with the Web map once it is launched.
``The resolution of photomaps are undoubtedly important, but we are more concerned over how to interweave the maps with our existing services and improve user experience,'' Choi said.
It's obvious that Korea's leading Internet companies believe that digital maps and interlaid location-based services will provide significant opportunities for growth.
Although the portals are racing to roll out maps with crystal-sharp views and various interactive features, they seem to have different ideas about the best way to generate money from their products.
Daum (www.daum.net), the No. 2 portal, is desperate to muster a serious challenge against Naver and is convinced that the quality of its detailed photographic map sets the industry bar.
The map, which will be introduced by the end of the year, provides a resolution of 50 centimeters per pixel, better than the Korean version of Google Maps that range between 50 centimeters to 1 meter per pixel.
The company says it is capable of enhancing picture qualities up to 25 centimeters per pixel, once the government eases its regulations on the resolution of aerial photography that is current limited to 50 centimeters per pixel.
Kim Min-oh, who heads Daum's local service team, says the company expects the map service to generate sales right from the start in 2009.
The company also sees an opportunity to collect licensing revenue as it plans to sell its virtual maps to government and business clients, such as companies developing car-navigation devices.
``We are confident that our leadership in quality will allow us to create profit in other markets,'' said Kim.
Paran (www.paran.com), which benefits from being a unit of telecommunications giant KT, said its Web services won't pale against Daum's, as it also boasts a 50-centimeter resolution. However, the company's idea of a business model looks somewhat different from that of its rival.
Paran isn't planning to sell its map data to other companies, but is looking to develop it as a platform for advertisements.
Collaborating with online map developer, G-Ad Solution, Paran is looking to integrate video advertisements to the images of buildings provided in the maps of Seoul and some other big cities. The company is the only portal that is providing video in its ``street view'' services, which provide users panoramic, ground-level views of a selected area.
Google (www.google.co.kr), which recently released the Korean version of Google Maps, and Yahoo! Korea (www.yahoo.co.kr), which became the first domestic portal to offer virtual maps earlier this year, are focused more on providing an open platform for users to build and enrich digital content.
Like Paran, both Google and Yahoo will allow businesses to list their shops and other information on the photomaps, as they currently do with their graphic maps, for free.
The service model is already drawing significant interest, with officials from more than 300 companies participating in Google's ``Google Map Partner Day'' event earlier this week. The portals hope that the significant participation from businesses will result in driving up traffic, which means more search revenue.