From the wa-po: Echo of the Wired Story about CyWorld.

What a Difference an Hour Makes: "13 Million Koreans Can't Be WrongWired.com has a story today about Cyworld, a social networking company run by South Korea's SK Communications. Now, I am aware that there are a ton of social networks out there, and for all their popularity, they aren't setting financial analysts on fire -- figuratively speaking.Cyworld, however, seems to be hotter than a fresh bowl of yuk gae jang: 'According to the service, Cyworld jumped from 10 million to 13 million users in 2004. A quarter of the country's 48.2 million people have signed up, including 90 percent of the 24- to 29-year-old age group, the company claims.'A quarter of the population? Sounds like press release boilerplate material, but I'm not ready to dismiss it out of hand. Here's more:'Users get their own page, a virtual living room called a minihompy where they can create diaries, publish images, network, host legal background music and more. Members personalize their minihompy with virtual objects they purchase from Cyworld, and enhance it with up to 10 tracks of background music they can buy and play for visitors. Universal Music International sells 100,000 tracks a day though Cyworld, according to Adam White, Universal's vice president of communications,' Wired reported. ('Hompy', by the way, is the Korean-language equivalent of 'home page.')The article continues: 'Like Friendster, Cyworld lets users create networks based on degrees of closeness. But Cyworld is Friendster-plus. As well as websites and blogs, Cyworld has its own version of the popular game The Sims. It also gives users unlimited image hosting, the ability to update pages by mobile phone and special-interest bulletin boards. The service has its own currency called dotoris (acorns) and its own slang and social obligations.'Apparently etiquette is even more important here than on other sites, according to Cyworld user Charlie Shin, who said that 'Korean social customs contribute to Cyworld's success. 'Everyone [who visits your page] starts leaving you messages,' said Shin. 'If you don't write back or leave a [guestbook] message on their site, they get upset.' In Korea, not responding in a timely fashion is seen as rude and upsetting. The end result is a 'vicious and unending cycle of messages,' Shin said. 'You can literally spend all day on the site writing everyone a message.''Introduce this to the North and I guarantee you they'll have no time to keep playing with plutonium.Apologies for not being able to find an English-language version. Cyworld's international editions include Chinese and Japanese, but the only English I could find was on the Chinese site where an anime boy orders me to 'JUST BE HAPPY!'"