In this blog post, we will look at how social media has changed the way people communicate, its positive role, and the issues we need to be aware of.
SNS stands for Social Network Service, which refers to services that allow users to form human networks on the web. It helps people who are geographically or temporally distant from each other to maintain their relationships, and also provides a function to build new relationships while maintaining existing ones.
Although the term “SNS” has only recently come into use, considering that the Internet itself was created as a means of easily communicating with people far away, it can be said that it is already a universal concept. Just as the invention of the wheel revolutionized transportation and led to the creation of the automobile, the wheel can be likened to email, and the automobile to SNS. Although their appearances and uses are different, they have developed with the same purpose in mind.
With the advent of the World Wide Web, portals were created. In the early days, they were not very corporate in nature, but with the boom in venture companies providing services via the Internet, services such as I Love School, Freechal, and Cyworld were launched in 1999. Among them, I Love School had a feature that allowed users to find alumni from the same school, and it contributed greatly to the development of social networks by enabling members to raise funds for their alma mater in the form of scholarships and organize offline gatherings.
The most successful of the early SNS services was Cyworld. Cyworld provided users with a personal space called a mini-homepage, which was easily accessible even to those who did not have their own website, and provided a service similar to the current SNS by grouping acquaintances into a concept familiar to Koreans called “cyworld friends.” Cyworld was also linked to the messenger program Nateon, which functionally replaced MSN Messenger, which had been widely used in South Korea for some time, and Nateon became synonymous with messenger in South Korea.
These indigenous SNSs have recently been losing users and influence. This is because SNSs used in English-speaking countries have been imported, revealing the limitations of indigenous SNSs, which are now being phased out. This is due to restrictions on registration caused by the real-name system that was only implemented in Korea, and the fact that the service could not be used by foreigners as the network of connections, which was previously limited to Korea, expanded internationally. In addition, in order to fully use indigenous SNS, users had to use specific browsers such as Internet Explorer and install various additional programs, which did not meet the needs of users who use a variety of browsers, and this also contributed to the decline in market share.
The introduction of foreign SNS can be seen as parallel to the introduction of smartphones in Korea. With the official release of the iPhone in Korea at the end of 2009, unlike existing domestic SNS that could only be used through computers, it became possible to easily contact acquaintances anywhere through smartphones, which greatly changed the paradigm of SNS usage. Domestic SNSs, which were slow to respond to services using smartphones that allowed users to easily take and share photos and videos anytime, anywhere, and receive real-time responses, lost subscribers to foreign SNSs. In particular, Lee Joo-sik, CEO of Cyworld, said, “Our response to the mobile market was slow, resulting in slow growth and stagnation,” suggesting that the late response to foreign SNSs and the new SNS ecosystem was a decisive factor.
With the decline of domestic SNS, Twitter and Facebook became popular in South Korea. These were the result of developments that emerged through the rise and fall of services such as MySpace, and because they appeared in 2004, later than Cyworld, which appeared in 1999, they are lighter and more advanced forms of SNS. Twitter, in particular, has gained popularity as a means of promotion during election season and through active use in broadcasting, while Facebook has also seen an increase in users in line with the spread of smartphones in Korea, with the number of Facebook users in Korea now exceeding 10 million.
Twitter allows users to write posts of up to 140 characters, which are shared with people they follow, similar to the “friends” concept on Cyworld. Unlike Cyworld, Twitter is very simple and intuitive to use. Therefore, it is difficult to use without active real-time interaction between users.
Facebook is a more flexible service than Twitter. Users can customize their own “timeline” and share videos, posts, photos, and comments with other users. These activities are displayed in real time to “friends,” providing a more open and faster service than Cyworld.
In line with these market changes, companies in Korea have also launched services such as Me2Day and Yozm, and Cyworld has also launched a smartphone app, but most of them are merely imitations of large SNS such as Twitter and have not had a significant impact due to the small number of users. This is due to the nature of the SNS market, where the first-mover advantage plays a significant role. If a service is launched first and attracts many subscribers, it takes a long time for users to switch to a new service, allowing the first mover to easily gain a dominant position in the market. Therefore, rather than launching new services, the market is developing by increasing the number of subscribers through the integration of subscriber information based on existing SNS. For example, if you have a Facebook account, you can use most US-based services, including Skype, without having to register separately.
These SNS are gaining attention because they provide a tool that makes it easy to maintain connections that were previously difficult to maintain. Their ease of use has increased accessibility, and with the widespread use of smartphones among both young and old, many members of society can easily connect with each other, further increasing their advantages. They also have various new features for forming new connections. Among them, the largest event held in Korea was “Tent24.” In the process of planning an event based on ideas proposed by users of an online community, users from other communities also collaborated via social media, and people who had never met before planned the event together. In the end, about 2,000 people connected through social media gathered at the elementary school where the event was held, and the live broadcast on the Internet attracted about 100,000 viewers, with the video recording over 1 million views. Another example is the music video for “Gangnam Style” by singer Psy. Despite no promotional activities overseas, the video was shared on social media and recorded 160 million views on YouTube, a leading video sharing website, and received an enthusiastic response overseas. As a result, Psy appeared on various TV programs overseas as a social media star, which is considered to be the biggest event that demonstrated the power of social media.
However, social media also has a negative side. That is the ease with which individuals’ private lives can be exposed. Users must enter their personal information in order to sign up, and this information can be easily accessed by others without the user’s knowledge. Crimes that violate the privacy of others are being committed by exploiting this system. In Taiwan, a man was arrested for stalking someone on Facebook, and in Korea, there have been frequent cases of people being targeted for doing something inconsiderate on the subway, or of people posting criticism on the personal pages of referees who made decisions unfavorable to Korea during the Olympics or of opposing players who committed serious fouls. In addition, there have been many incidents in which people who are not fully aware of the powerful influence of social media spread false information, or celebrities, who are more recognizable than the general public, cause social controversy by posting inappropriate comments.
However, recent technological advances in smartphones, communications, and video technology have focused on services that make social networking more active, and the social media market, which has been growing rapidly in recent years, is developing while overcoming its potential and apparent shortcomings. The connection between people, which began with the invention of the telephone, is reaching its peak through social media, and it will be interesting to see how it will develop in the future. We look forward to the emergence of completely new and convenient forms of social media alongside the release of new devices in the future.
