Cyworld or Facebook?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the site, "Cyworld" is Korea's equivilent of America's "Facebook". I've been on the site only a couple times to browse through the features, and it seemed to hold a very different concept from the popular "Myspace" or "Facebook" that we use here in the United States. What I initially noticed about "Cyworld" was its small, photobook or album-like features; this was extremely different from "Facebook" with its full screen wall posts. "Cyworld" also offers little clickable tabs with labels like photos, bio, and more. "Cyworld" gives each of their users a little character of their own with his/her own "room" that you may choose to decorate, which many of the "Cyworld" users seem to take great advantage of. There were also things like a popularity/famous rate or kindness rate meters on the upper right hand corner of these "Cyworld" albums.

"Cyworld" is a little more to Korea than "Facebook" might be for an average American teen or college student, however. According to Erick Schonfeld's Cyworld Ready to Attack Myspace, an estimated 90% of Koreans in their 20s, and a grand total of a third of Korea's entire population is signed up for this virtual homepage. This was a shocking percentage, since neither "Facebook" or "Myspace" come near the amount of users that "Cyworld" apparently has. I am aware that even major Korean celebrities put up "Cyworlds" for use in public.

Erick Schonfeld's article was from July of 2007, which might be considered a little dated, but I was still excited to find out that Korea has opened up "Cyworld" to U.S. users as well. This U.S. version of "Cyworld" was opened up around mid-August, and apparently had a few technical problems near the beginning of its debut. But the main concern of opening "Cyworld" in the U.S. was whether the targeted audience (teens) would use this virtual site or not. It was clear that there were obvious cultural differences between Korea and the U.S. For instance, many were worried that the "cutesy" value of "Cyworld" would not appeal to American users as much as it may for Korean users. Also, although Koreans may be enthusiastic about spending money on buying their virtual homepages various decorations (i.e. furniture, tiles, curtaines, etc.), it was predicted that the U.S. version of "Cyworld" would most likely run on money from advertisements. For these reasons, the U.S. version of "Cyworld" was altered in a way that would appeal more to their tastes.

Schonfeld states in his article that, "The bulk of Cyworld revenue comes from the sale of virtual items worth nearly $300,000 a day, or more than $7 per user per year. By comparison, ad-heavy MySpace makes an estimated $2.17 per user per year." It amazes me that Koreans are so willing to use money on something they technically are unable to physically own. However, as I read further into Schonfeld's article, things made a little more sense. In Korea, "Cyworld" also represents a certain class status. If you keep your page blank, you're rated lower than others whereas you might attract many viewers if your page has been decorated to its fullest extent. I remember my friends in Korea were near obsessed with this "Cyworld", and they were constantly changing the music and designs of their homepages; even my mother and her friends were pulled into this craze for a while.

I found it interesting to see that these webpage obsessions exist in other countries as well.
Any thoughts about "Cyworld"?

By the way, this is the link to Eric Schonfeld's article: http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/technology/cyworld0727.biz2/index.htm
and the link to the U.S. version of "Cyworld":
http://us.cyworld.com/ as well as the link to the Korean version of "Cyworld", which may take a little longer to load (note the difference in profile structure for users in the U.S. and users in Korea):
http://www.cyworld.com/main2/index.htm