Comments on: A Lesson from the Shutdown Notice of Cyworld

By: Jim Hong

Jim Hong — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:41:32 +0000

Are you sure this was a branding failure (combined with poor localization)? My understanding of the CyWorld product is that it is a social network with a strong sense bend towards chat, etc. This isn’t the kind of thing that has seen a big foothold in the U.S. If you look at another Korean company – NCSoft – you’ll find that their product does considerably better, and I think it’s because their gaming products maps more closely to what U.S. audiences are looking for. I wonder if this is more an issue of the product not being what U.S. audiences are interested in currently?

By: Pei-chieh

Pei-chieh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:33:49 +0000

Hi Elizabeth and Antika,

I agree with you. Cyworld’s lack of localization lead their failure in overseas markets. However, they did try to localized but failed. They owned local companies and have localized interface for each website. However, most people joined the service because their likeness about Korean culture. They feel disappointed when they found out the service isn’t globalized enough.

On the contrary, Facebook becomes globally without being much localization. They don’t have local offices. The interface of the website stay same for each countries. All they did is providing multiple language. So I think it’s hard to decide a web service should go global and local.

By: -AntikA-

-AntikA- — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:22:33 +0000

I agree with Elizabeth that to be success on global level, the company needs to understand their customers in each area. There are no standard rules for any business to use to work in every country.

Even the global product such as Coca Cola or Mc Donald, be reminded that food is the basic need for everyone, they also have to adjust their products to meet the local need. The Coca-Cola has many tastes for selling around the world. Mc Donald in Thailand has a special menu for serving Thai people who love spicy food.

Cyworld is more complicated than those products because it is service. The customers have different preferences on the service depending on their lifestyles and behaviors. The website users are not only require the different languages but also different website layouts and content.

If the website like Cyworld wanted to be success on global level, it should conduct the hard work research to understand their new customer, and also conduct strong supporting team, including translator team to work along with the service. Thus, the website will have to invest a lot of money and could not provide the free service as in its original country.

By: Elizabeth Noagi

Elizabeth Noagi — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:15:06 +0000

Branding and marketing are important but they are not as important as understanding your customers. Cyworld went global, but they were thinking local. Just because a strategy works in Asia, doesn’t mean that it will work in Europe, the Americas or any other continent you pick. When making a plan to cross international boundaries, we have to allow for differences in cultural perspectives and language. Plus, successful companies that go international have more than a great plan. They have the wiliness to develop a new persona that fits the needs of their new audience. Pepsi in the states isn’t advertised the same as Pepsi in Europe or the Middle East. In fact, based on taste their recipe is either different or maybe it’s just the minerals that find themselves in the local waters that feed their factories.

By: Zachary Midles

Zachary Midles — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:59:52 +0000

Branding and marketing are incredibly important in any business. It can make or break your company. In the article “A lesson from the shutdown notice of Cyworld,” the article ends with “having strong branding and marketing is especially important to companies in the digital age.” The branding is important because if your company is branded incompetent, they will not survive. With the dramatic grammatical errors that Cyworld was showing in its American markets website, they branded themselves as unable to properly communicate with people who speak English and were consequently shut down because of it. Granted they had a lot of visitors each day in the American market, but they may only hurt their brand more because more people are aware of how weak in grammar they are.
While it is hard in the digital age to slow down expansion because the World-Wide-Web makes it seem very straightforward, companies have to be careful with going to fast and being branded incompetent. Even with the new digital age where practically any website can exist, a company must still have good grammar to be taken seriously.
While the website Cyworld could have stayed up because costs are extremely low, I do believe a lesson can be learned from this. That lesson is if you want to expand on the world market, put your best foot forward, and make sure that you are using appropriate grammar. Otherwise you will not be taken seriously and will be shut down.

By: Darien

Darien — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:22:56 +0000

I wouldn’t expect anything less from SK Telecom (Cyworld’s parent company in Korea). Just look at how Korean telecoms have handled the smartphone market, which hasn’t taken any cues from the outside world. They’ve dragged their feet on the app market, and still just fill their app stores with products that they tell themselves people will want; third party developers and users themselves have, up to this point, played little to no role in driving the evolution of the mobile app medium.

Five years ago, Korea seemed like an emerging IT powerhouse. Today, it feels like a wasteland of dated and failed ideas.