Google faces uphill battle in Korea
Suffering from low recognition, lacking in detailed search results, and losing out to local competitors are negative comments that the famed internet portal Google is not used to hearing, but faces in the Korean market.
낮은 인지도의 수난, 자세하지 못한 검색 결과물, 그리고 기존 경쟁자들에 의한 실패.
유명한 인터넷 포탈 구글이 듣지 않았던 부정적인 의견들이다.
하지만 한국 시장에 얼굴을 내밀었다.
Some of the latest news, however, indicates that Google is taking gradual steps to increase its presence here.
최근에 뉴스에서 지적 하더라도, 구글은 단게적으로 증가하는 스텝으로 여기에 존재 한다.
According to industry sources, Google has just selected the head of its Korean office, and the chief of its Korean R&D center that is slated to open next month. It is on course to hire local webmasters and developers and is even rumored to be in talks with several advertising agencies responsible for TV, newspaper and electronic board ads.
Lee Won-jin, former Adobe Korea president, was selected as Google Korea's first president. Lee has a master's degree from Purdue University in electronics and electrical engineering, worked at LG Electronics' satellite business and served as a vice president of U.S.-based i2 Technologies.
"We can not either confirm nor deny the reports. I can only tell you that the webmaster position is opened for recruitment," said Lois Kim, a spokesperson for Google Korea.
Rumors abound when Dennis Hwang, Google's chief webmaster, came to Korea and told reporters that Google would select a team of experienced webmasters here.
The case of Google China can be an illustrating example for Google Korea's expansion plan.
Google China set itself up and began to operate its own server for localized searches last year. The Chinese branch also acquired shares worth $5 million in a China-based peer-to-peer file swapping website.
Google China said it would expand to blog and community services. It opened a new Google ranking site that shows a list of the most frequently visited websites of different interests.
Industry watchers say that Google will not drastically expand its investments in Korea, but will forge partnerships with profitable local IT ventures for ad revenue.
"Google China has a 25 percent share of the market, second to Beijing-based rival Baidu.com. But Google Korea's market share is less than 2 percent. Therefore, I do not think Google will make huge investments in Korea. It looks like the company will instead focus on developing search services and technologies as Korea has abundant IT human resources," an industry insider said.
According to a survey conducted last month by local Web log analysis data provider Acecounter, Google Korea has a 1.68 percent share of the domestic internet search market.
"Popular local portals such as Naver and Cyworld offer social networks and blog services in proprietary settings, which is the biggest reason for attracting users. But Google has none of this," said a 24-year-old college student.
By Hwang Si-young
https://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2007/04/24/200704240060.asp
