Hompy

Joi Ito explains a bit about the succes of Hompy, a sort of homepage that 10 out of 45 million Koreans have. Also read his thoughts on why the blogging landscape in Korea differs from 'ours', he thinks OhmyNews might have something to do with that.

"According to articles in the press, there are 5-6 million blogs. These are not to be confused with hompy. Hompy (a derivative of home page) are personal home pages with photo albums, guest books, avatars, background skins, and background music. There are approximately 10 million hompy pages. In a city with a population of 10 million and a country with a population of 45 million, that's quite impressive. Companies seem to be making money selling background music and items for hompy pages. Most of the posts are focused on photos and one line comments on pages of friends. They are generally closed communities and are focused more on real-time presence-like communication rather than diary or dialog."