Here I am in Paris participating in the Forum Net Explorateur, a hightech/business conference held by the French Senate. Overall, the event is a lot more upscale than I had expected - after all, it's being held right in the country's senate. Many of the 300+ participants wear suits, and fine food and cocktails are being served during hallway discussions - I can certainly see the heavy European culture in action here.
This year, one of the forum's special topics is South Korea, which is why they invited some Korean folks like Daum's founder Jaewoong Lee and the director of Songdo u-City projec. I got invited as a blogger and Open Web Asia conference organizer, and my talks (later today) will be titled "Lesser known web innovations in Korea".
Time and again, I am surprised to see that what we Koreans take for granted is can actually generate a lot of interest from those outside of Korea. For example, when a French expat in Seoul says that most Korean taxis are equipped with a navigation system that can double up as a satellite TV or a realtime traffic monitor, and that Korean taxi drivers can somehow drive fast while watching the national team's soccer game on DMB, people go nuts. Though I seriously doubt Koreans give lots of credits to the government these days, the French folks are marveled by Korean government's strong technology drive.
So people naturally ask, why is Korea so advanced, and what are the next innovations that are about to come from Korea. About this, says Jaewoong Lee, the founder of Daum (the country's second biggest portal and the biggest media site): Korea is a pretty small/packed/homogeneous society, but people put so much focus on education and innovation. For example, Koreans are the #1 foreign students in the US with some 15% representation. This makes the country very dynamic and innovative. Historically, many services have been introduced in Korea first, such as social network (Cyworld), classmates site (iLoveSchool), knowledge search (Knowledge iN), online games (Lineage), etc. (I can also add internet telephony by Dialpad.) Likewise, what's currently ongoing in Korea may see wider adoption in other countries in the future, such as the media convergence through IPTV, or the super-highspeed wireless network, said Lee.
It's always good to be called an innovator, but as an insider, I feel Korea isn't as innovative as it used to be 10 years ago. Many Korean web industry experts express their worries that the sweeping startup passion that existed before doesn't seem to be there any more in Korea. What the Koreans need might be the sense of urgency to cross the chasm, not navel-gazing and self satisfaction. But still Korea is way ahead of many parts of the world, especially in terms of how average people embrace the technology.
