Online games in Korea - there are two sides to the coin

It is not only that exports of games from Korea surge, due to their fantastic infrastructure.

Naturally, those companies that are based overseas also realise the impact that the overall environment has and that there is a ready-made market for their product as well. As such, foreign-made online games also make relentless forays into Korea. Well, there are always two sides of a coin.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China, Southeast Asia sign landmark free trade accord

Southeast Asia (SEA) and China created the world's largest Free Trade Zone Agreement by removing tariffs for their 2 billion people by decade's end — a key step in their vision of a trade bloc to rival Europe and North America.

This is great due to a variety of reasons:

- Countries can mutually develop with each other.
- China is more integrated in SEA, and engaged in the overall economic development. May be the perception of a threat from China - economically and may be even militarily can be diminished
- A free flow of talents across borders could be initiated, which is great in view of the beginning evolution of an aging society, and the upcoming brain drains and talent wars in certain countries. Countries with labour constraints could benefit from surplus labour in other regions
- There is a Vision going forward. The vision to create an ASEAN Community along the lines of a unified Europe by 2020. As such, the FTA can be seen as a first step towards this long journey. However it took Europe nearly 50 years or so to develop into what they are today. As such, I foresee plenty of future challenges for Asia, due to its much more diverse nature.

What is problematic is the overall proliferation of FTA agreements across the region and the globe. Isn't it possible that many times, one FTA is in conflict with the next one? This might rise the specter of bureaucracy and delay. Overall, hwoever, and if implemented correctly, it cold be a huge boon for the economic integration of Asia.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Adware or Spyware - Marketers don't like classification, consumers don't care

Kazaa has been labeled the leading spyware pest in a report by Computer Associates. However, their report caused some stir amongst marketers as they threw spyware and adware into the same basket.

They said that "that any other peer-to-peer file exchange programs, such as Blubster, Gnucleus and WinMX, could also degrade network performance and consume storage space because they are bundled with adware or spyware.

Adware program Ezula came second in the company's top five, beating Adopt.hotbar.com and GameSpy Arcade."

Sure, marketers scream and say Adware is different. But then - do consumers care? They don't always see the distinguishing line that marketers see. They don't see the category as such, but react to effects only. And they want to see it go away.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Is e-mail as communication tool coming to an end?

That is what a new study in Korea is saying. E-mail is seen as something for older people - ""I use email when I send messages to elders" or something that you use to deal with daily tasks - "I use email only for receiving cellphone and credit card invoices."

These are some of the statements that came from a poll conducted by Chungbuk University computer education professor Lee Ok-hwa on over 2,000 middle, high school and college students in Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces in October 2004.

The worse part, for those dealing with or used to e-mail is that more than two-thirds of the respondents said, "I rarely use or don't use e-mail at all." As such, it is not just a minority that talks this way.

Reason for the dislike? May be it is because the "youngsters" are so trained to speed up everything in their life. They are saying that "it is impossible to tell whether an addressee has received a message right away and replies are not immediately forthcoming." Others are that it is not interactive enough - as interactive as SMS, for example. Respondents said that it is more of a game to text away while writing an e-mail is more of a task.

The article also provides some hard facts: "The ebb of email is confirmed by a diminishing trend in pageviews, a tabulation of frequency in service used by email users. Daum Communication, the top email business in the country, saw its email service pageviews fall over 20 percent from 3.9 billion in October last year to 3 billion in October this year. By contrast, with SK Telecom, the nation's No. 1 communication firm, monthly SMS transmissions skyrocketed over 40 percent in October from 2.7 billion instances last October. Cyworld, a representative mini-homepage firm, witnessed its pageviews multiply over 26-fold from 650 million instances in October last year to 17 billion in October this year."

Korea sets a trend, frequently. So while in other countries, users still ask for more e-mail accounts, may be the reason for the starting failure of e-mail is in its lack of immediate interactivity, or even the growing menace of spam.

E-mail won't go away - but that its nature is changing is clear.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung rocks - as simple as that

There are a lot of write-ups about Samsung in this blog, with all the justifications behind it. It is a great company, with a great culture, a lot of firsts in a variety of markets from cameras to the development of a hard-drive phone to - I believe we can lose track easily. Do a search in this blog and you will find plenty.

The company has its customers in mind when it develops products and it doesn't push its products - which is important - but let customers experience the feel of its products. With the amazing by-product that customers really, really don't need to buy - just experience the product. So much for great confidence.

BusinessWeek runs an article this about Samsung's winning formula this week - design and committed leadership.

Let me describe some of the many, many keypoints in this article.

How did Samsung get so far? BusinessWeek writes that "the change started in 1993, when Chairman Lee Kun Hee visited retailers in Los Angeles and saw that Samsung products were lost in the crowd, while those from Sony Corp. and a few others stood out. So he ordered his managers to concentrate less on cost saving and more on coming up with unique products."

I love this - cost savings or its worse cousin, cost cutting, is one of the core competencies of many companies - but it is the company that invests in its future today that succeeds tomorrow. Look at Intel and its behaviour throughout the last rececession. As a sign, they hired when others went down.

As it is often the case in companies, leadership makes a difference and the way they use words is important in describing their aspiration.

Samsung's CEO Yun Jong Yong says that

"We want to be the Mercedes of home electronics."

How does this sound?

And design became them - "since 2000, Samsung has earned a total of 100 citations at top design contests in the US, Europe, and Asia." BusinessWeek also mentions the five awards in the Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) that Samsung won in 2004 and which made the company the first Asian company to win more awards than any European or American rival. And of course - a great company attracts knowledge worker - Samsung Electronics was one of Asia's most admired knowledge enterprises.

What is the CEO saying now about design?

"Good design is the most important way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors."

And where do their designers look? Not inside their industry - if you are a market leader or even if you intend to become a market leader, you might want to look outside your industry to see, what could inspire your future customers.

"Samsung started sending designers abroad to spend a few months at fashion houses, cosmetics specialists, or design consultancies to stay current with what's happening in other industries. Lee Yun Jung, a senior designer who works on colors and finishes, spent last autumn in residence at a furniture designer in Italy."

Now this is a marketing lesson for oh so many of the boring companies out there that don't produce much else than products that look the same as the products of their competitor, that hire people from the same industry and franatically benchmark practices without realising that benchmarking alone does not differentiate them from the next company.

Of course, there is a danger that Samsung is going to be overtaken. But they invest in their future and run fast and hard. The company has doubled its design staff, to 470, adding 120 of those just in the past 12 months. And since 2000, its design budget has been increasing 20% to 30% annually. And, by the way - they also have the post of a chief design officer.

Will they survive the run? Well, may be not - giants tend to fall from time to time and not many get up and run some more, but may be they do, for a while at least - but whatever it is, it is a pleasure to watch it now, today.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Virgin plans MVNO in India

Richard Branson's Virgin Group is one of the most successful and fun-to-be-around-groups in the business world today. His ventures are not always successful but clearly, he has the passion to change business models and to be an ideal for any inspiring entrepreneur.

Virgin Mobile is one of the most successful MVNO in the UK, and also in the UK. To those of you who are unfamiliar with the expression. MVNO stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator. An MVNO is a mobile service operator that does not have its own licensed spectrum and does not have the infrastructure to provide mobile service to its customers but runs its business by leasing lines from its competitors. It is an interesting business model, because instead of the need to spend on maintainance of the infrastructure -costs which are included in the leasing charges -, it basically only needs take care of customers and branding, so to speak. And it must do a better job in providing services to customers, since an MVNO also charges slightly higher charges than the "original" operator. A conflict of interest arises when the MVNO is so successful that the company on whose network it runs faces challenges with their own capacity - a situation that arose in the UK, for instance.

Anyway, Virgin Mobile failed in Singapore about 2 years back - the messages were a little bit too hip for the country. However, they now are back and this time, they target India. "Richard Branson has said he is in talks with telecoms license holders in India over the possibility of leasing network capacity for a Virgin operation."

India - be ready for a ride on the hip side of life!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Korean Scientists Succeed in Stem Cell Therapy

This would be fantastic news and a new medical breakthrough. A team of Korean researchers claimed Thursday they had performed a miracle by enabling a patient, who could not even stand up for the last 19 years, to walk with stem cell therapy.

Stem cell therapy is in discussion worldwide, if it should be allowed or forbidden. But one can say whatever, if the discussion is supported by strong and positive developments such as these, who will remain in opposition? Medical breakthroughs are bound to happen due to the development of technology - more will come with nanotechnology. The challenge is - can mindset, culture, and value system cope with change?

By Asia Business Consulting

Copyright issues to expand to discos, dance schools and others?

This currently happens in Japan, but who says it won't expand to other countries?

"After winning its long-playing battle over song royalties with karaoke houses, a music copyright watchdog is telling live jazz clubs, discos and dance schools that it's time to pay the piper."

The club has to pay royalties from 1997 onwards - since their opening. And since the tax collectors naturally don't know how many songs were played that might have infringed copyright, they just put up an average sum per month.

Good morning world. When will the music industry wake up to realise that they are living in a world that is different from their's yesterday?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Biometric check-in system at Changi

Parts of this might relate to more supervision and control in Singapore, part of it is fun, since it really allows stepping up the pace in the regional competition amongst airports in Asia.

"Singapore’s Changi airport has introduced the world’s first trial of a biometric system that combines check-in and immigration procedures for departing passengers."

Under the new system, which is on trial since November 1, "passengers must first register and get a card that contains a microchip recording their facial details and fingerprints," - which is the scary part since it reaches far into the privacy sphere of individuals. But it is possible to say that this introduction also enhances the security of departing planes. It depends on which side you stand - more privacy or more infringing security.

Anyway - with the system, check in is reduced from the current 8-15 minutes to just 2 minutes - which is tremendous in stepping up efficiency.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Technology and manners

There was once a time when people were well-mannered. The greeted nicely, knew how to eat properly, gave the seat in the LRT to the elderly and so on. All of this is in decline, but I believe at that time, people were also complaining about the decline of manners. I think that this is a trait of time.

Instead, some manners decline while new rules of behaviour develop. Today, technology is just doing this - it is changing our behaviour, but frequently, we have not learnt how to act politely with technology that is coming onto us.

SmartMobs has put together some simple rules that might make life a little bit easier.

"You should not accept or continue a phone call if a shop assistant is serving you.

If Jean-Paul Sartre were alive, which he isn't, and he gave advice, which he didn't, he may well have shed light on the correct use of a mobile phone using his distinction between thinking of a person authentically as a being-for-itself ( être-pour-soi ) with will and consciousness, or inauthentically as being-in-itself ( être-en-soi ), a mere thing. So when we ignore the presence of someone like a shop assistant, treating them as absent and the absent caller as present, we are doing no less than denying their humanity. For the same reason ...

You should never text anybody while in the middle of a conversation.

Or email, for that matter.

. . . .

Do not smooch in the company of others.

It is an oddity of human nature that while pornography is much sought after, we do not generally delight in seeing others slurpily manifest their love in public. Maybe it is just envy: the single are harshly reminded of the lack of affection in their lives, the long-attached of the lack of raw passion in theirs. Whatever the explanation, public smooching is exceedingly irritating to others, which means we shouldn't do it. As that great philosopher Everyone's Ex once said, "Try thinking of other people for a change."

Always dump in person, not by text, fax or email.

Hamlet may have said that "conscience doth make cowards of us all", but surely it takes a special lack of conscience to be so cowardly as to end a relationship any other way than face to face. It's the only way to preserve both respect for the dumped and the dignity of the dumper.

. . . .

Remember that neither the cinema nor the theatre is your front room.

Apart from, obviously, making sure your mobile is turned off, don't talk during the performance, and if you have to say something to your companion, make sure it is inaudible to others. If you want to talk, rent a video. Sorry, DVD.

Actually, there is nothing revolutionary new here, just some plain thinking of how you would feel if this is happening to you at the receiving side. What do you think?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

A blog revolution in China

Over the last week or so, we had a couple of reports about the power of blogging in China. Recall that there were about 600,000 active bloggers in China at the moment.

The current article published in the New Scientist describes the evolution of the blogging phenomena in China.

It traces back the roots to blogging in China to a Isaac Mao who started to blog in 2002 and who found Zheng Yunsheng shortly afterwards. Both met and started a blog called CNBlog.org, China’s first online discussion forum about blogging technology and culture, which attracted some following.

China doesn't appreciate the power of openness too much and they establish control to the Internet via nine gateways that connect China to the global internet.

In addition, its cracks down on undesirable websites, close cybercafes and thinks of other ways to control the flow of information.

"By January 2003, China had about 2000 bloggers when, without warning, the Chinese government blocked all access to blogspot.com, the server that hosts all blogs registered on Blogger, however, this let to a reorientation of the blogging community which started to use Chinese startups that offered blogging sites, such as Blogcn.com, Blogdriver.com and Blogbus.com.

Those sites have some limitation: "Whether in China or elsewhere, such sites are usually moderated by editors who keep them relevant and readable. In China, the moderators also keep their sites’ content acceptable to the censor, so when users try to post a “forbidden” comment they receive a warning message such as “your post contains sensitive and indecent contents”.

Still, people hit the limits. "A magazine writer in Guangzhou in southern China, who wrote under the name Mu Zimei, began keeping a sex diary on blogcn.com. “I have a job that keeps me busy, and in my spare time I have a very humanistic hobby – making love,” she wrote. “The partner I take in my hobby is one I choose and always changes. I rely on a large supply pool. I do not need to take any responsibility for them; neither should I give them love. They will not cause me problems. They are like CDs, which will not make a sound unless I play them.”

With explicit details and sometimes even publishing real names, Mu Zimei’s sex diary was a hit. By mid-November 2003, more than 160,000 people had logged on to her site and the number was growing by 6000 a day. While her explicit writing and lifestyle challenged traditional morals, causing heated debate in the Chinese media, Mu Zimei also made bo ke a familiar word for hundreds of millions of people.

As the Mu Zimei debates raged, the number of users on blogcn.com leapt from 20,000 to 160,000. Other blog sites saw similar increases."

This kept the blogging habit growing. "By the end of October 2004, China had more than 45 large blog-hosting services."

What does all this show? I believe it shows that it is increasingly difficult for countries to control the thirst for information by its population. It started off with simple blogging - or writing of text, so to speak, but now we have photoblogs, moblogs, videoblogs and so on. The will to express yourself will grow stronger, once 3G becomes available in a big wave. So technology does not only change business sectors and business models, but clearly, it transforms countries and empowers the population as well.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

LG settles MP3 issue

Finally some movement in the music industry, albeit only in Korea. There was a legal fight earlier this year between industry groups and LG Telecom about the way they tried to enable MP3 downloads onto mobile phones.

However, LG slightly after this pushed the new business model by signing up music groups to give away free MP3 songs anyway, much to the dismay of those industry groups.

Now, three Korean music industry groups have apparently realised that either they jump onto the bandwagon or lose out totally. "Under the deal, LG Telecom subscribers will be able to download copyrighted songs from third-party music Web sites. The service will be offered free of charge to consumers until the end of June next year." Well, it is only until next year, but by then, many things might have changed again.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The bad, the good and the ugly - a survey about spam

Reveries did a survey about spam and the impact is has on permission or direct marketing. Here are the detailed survey results of the over 500 responses they have captured.

Naturally, a healthy 45% of the people say they see spam at least as a moderate problem - they probably don't receive 4 million spam messages a day. Only a small 2.7% has no problem with it.
What is interesting is that while only about 1 in 3 respondents use spamfilters against incoming flood, 65% says that it is successful. The study doesn't detail, if the respondents only use one or may be more filters, as a different study has shown that a single spamfilter is not necessarily successful in filtering. In this study is stated that even the best-performing anti-spyware scanner failed to detect about 25% of the "critical" files and registry entries installed by the malicious programs, which is scary.

What is also scary is that in reducing the number of spams, people still revert back to using the "unsubscribe" button, or complain to the sender in order to probably been taken off the list. They might not realise that this action is actually confirming their e-mail address as "real" to spammers, thus making their e-mail address much more valuable, since spammers subsequently realise that a real person is behind the e-mail address.

Interestingly, about 60% of the respondents stated that this reaction was successful - and even the "unsubscribe" button seemed to work.

There is also the discussion ongoing if e-mail as a medium of communication is broken, and it is somewhat comforting to know that only close to 17% agrees with this opinion, although things might change, when the pace of spam is continuing to increase.

Read the article about the study here. It is worth a read.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

There are 320 million mobile phones in China

In China, the number of mobile phones overtook fixed line installations last month, which stood at 310 million in the end of October.

In addition, another 5.5 million mobile phone users sign up monthly -

The Ministry of Information in China also stated that from January to October 2004, mobile phone short message traffic soared by 62% over the same period a year earlier to more than 176.1 billion messages.

All these are numbers, mobile phone companies in other countries dream about. They are frequently faced with quickly saturating markets, however, as mentioned earlier, the first signs of saturation appear in China as well. And many companies put in place strategies to cope with those markets by startig to serve their customers better.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

India and China signed IT deal

Both countries had their trouble with each other, but over the last couple of months and years, their relation has warmed up.

Which is good since both represent two economic powerhouses that will shape the world economy in the years to come.

Now, both have also signed a landmark agreement for collaboration in information technology.

In addition, the countries pledged to cooperate in future growth industries - space and pharmaceutical research, disaster management, renewable energy and biotechnology.

Any other country leader reading this should get very, very worried if they don't have plans in place to upgrade their economy a bit more.

(by Asia Business Consulting)

Banner ads carried viruses

That is a new one, and might be another reason to switch to Firefox. Apparently, banner ads carried by The Register, NBC Universal, ATOM Shockwave, The Golf Channel and A&E Networks were affected by a virus last Saturday.

It is not quite clear how it worked but apparently, the virus was downloaded when visistors using Internet Explorer on a non-updated Windows computer were visiting the respective sites.

That is a new one for the Internet world, really.

There is an article about the background of Firefox, and one Prof. Mendel Rosenblum in the Computer Science Department is quoted as saying independently from this virus incidence):

"Browser innovation at Microsoft proceeded very rapidly up to the point they sufficiently crushed Netscape, and then it totally stopped. Having a good open-source browser that appears to be evolving very quickly exposes Microsoft to the risk that Mozilla will get good enough to start luring folks to it."

Sounds about right to me.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Movies in China and the Power of the Internet

There is a movie playing in China - which is nothing unusual. The unusual part is that it wasn't one of the movies that broke records, until actors behind the scene became more active.

We are talking about the Chinese film "Life Translated". The film was written by 25-year-old Li Qianni, known as Niuniu, who not only stars in it but is also the daughter of Li Yizhen, a deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China Committee in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

And apparently, as the movie didn't take off, her father started to send messages to schools asking them to buy tickets for the movie and start seeing it.

This is nothing unusual as well in this country that still is not as open as many would like to see it, where corruption is rampant and much larger scandals involving banking and real estate fraud remain unresolved.

But what happened than is that the power of the Internet came to bear. Already, we have more than 600,000 active blogs in China, there are around 111 million Internet users in China, which makes it the world's largest Internet community after the US.

And they started to complain online about this move. Some Internet users are describing the "movie scandal as "Shenzhen's BMW incident." Others are calling for the father's resignation.

"Mr. Li, step down. Go home and study the Three Represents," one person wrote, referring to the slogan of former President Jiang Zemin that has become a catchphrase about how the government should serve the interests of the people."

What does this show? That China's population is awakening, openminded and increasingly critical.

Even the Communist Party considers corruption a serious threat to its rule and has launched many campaigns to clean up the system. "Now that this case is out in the open, critics say, it will be difficult for Beijing to ignore."

Amazing numbers about the growth of blogs

According to David Sifry, Technorati's chief executive, the current number of blogs is now over 8 times bigger than the 500,000 blogs it measured in June, 2003 and doubled every 5 months over the last 1.5 years.

The company tracked 3 million blogs as of the first week of July, and has added over 1 million blogs to its stable since then.

To show the power of the blogs, Pew Internet & American Life says that a new weblog is created every 5.8 seconds. That roughly translates into 15,000 new blogs every day.

However, while there are estimates that there will be 10 million blogs by the end of 2004, half of them will be dead and some say that only about 1 million are updated regularly.

Some Blog Demoraphics:

Age Range Blogs Created
by Age Percent
10-12 55,500 1.3%
13-19 2,120,000 51.5%
20-29 1,630,000 39.6%
30-39 241,000 5.8%
40-49 41,700 1.0%
50-59 18,500 0.4%
60-69 13,900 0.3%
Total 4,120,000 100%

Source: Perseus Development Corp.

According to our opinion it is a matter of transforming a blog from a personal diary into something "living". All bloggers somehow start a blog of on a very personal level, but than branch out into new areas. It is important to be interactive, as the web is about Interactivity, otherwise, it might get boring. But then, as usual, it is also important to have fun and passion in doing what you are doing. And a little reward, such as increasing visitor numbers, is a sure thing to keep going.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The story of SMS in the Philippines

BusinessWeek has a great write-up about the situation of SMS in the Philippines:

• Filipinos send an average of 200 million messages daily, or2.4 per capita and many ignore voice capabilities.
• Nearly 38% of sales in the Philippine cellular market come from text, compared with 1% to 2% in the U.S.
• Innovative services take off. We wrote about earlier. Others are described in this article

Let's just hope that they keep going, and forego the implementation of the VAT tax on texting and don't kick themselves out of the market by not going for 3G, whatever the market is saying, right now.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China to overtake Germany economically

China is emerging as a power on the worldstage, no doubt about that.

About 60,000 companies were established between 2000 and 2003 - which equals something like every 26 minute one new company (took the calculation from Tom Peters, but quoted from the same article). This is a bombastic development.

Now, this ongoing growth over the last two decades pushes up the country, making it the world's third largest one, after the US and Japan, overtaking Germany - which is mired in recession and tries to get over a decade-long slump

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Blogging in China

There are about 600,000 bloggers in China, which is quite a large number for a country that is heavily trying to regulate the Internet, clamps down on those websites that it considers inappropriate and even installs surveillance cameras in cybercafes to observe their citizens.

It closed down bloggers that were too openminded - there was this young woman young woman "known as Muzimei. Her blog, which became perhaps the most widely followed personal Internet site in China last year, featured her self-described, graphic sexual exploits. The straight-laced government was not amused, and shut her down. She then wrote a book."

It is difficult to control blogs and "the importance of blogs in reaching out to an audience should not be underestimated. Blogs are about interactivity and messages can spread quickly.

Governments and companies need to realise all of this. Still, it will take time before these entities wake up to the new reality and reach out to their own "shareholders" via blogs. So far, the Chinese government's "shutdown of blogging sites was ``a sign of panic'' over a new kind of medium", according to one blogger quoted in the article.

But if the number of blogs continue to grow in Asian countries and become as vocal as those in the US, well, may be one day soon, they will become an acknowledged medium of conversation and ongoing exchange of ideas.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Cheating via mobile phones during seminars

It is bound to happen and probably exaggerated by stress during the examination periods.

Kids cheat during exams. In earlier times, this was done by using paper kept under the table that contained some of the material that was learnt to prepare for the tests and honestly, the preparation of a cheatpaper helped in learning the required topics. No need to use the cheatpaper prepared during the actual exam.

Technology changed the way how cheating is conducted - and mobile phones are used more frequently nowadays - which makes the preparation unnecessary and thus, doesn't allow for the learning that I indicated in the in the earlier paragraph.

There is a huge scandal brewing in Korea now, after arrest warrants for six students and another one put on the wanted list for playing key roles in a cheating scam. Apparently this is the largest cheating scandal involving high school seniors after evidence was secured suggesting that about 100 students allegedly used cell phones to cheat during the national college entrance exam held last Wednesday.

"Initial investigations show the students purchased cell phones from a Seoul-based telecommunications company before taking the exam. They gathered at a motel and practiced the cheating to get good scores."

Test-takers now doubt the credibility of the annual College Scholastic Ability Test, which is used as a key reference by universities when selecting students.

I pity those kids that might have to take the exam again: Depending on the outcome of the investigation, many parents and students are likely to file lawsuits to demand a new exam or have Wednesday's exam annulled.

Update:

May be it really is due to social pressure on children to succeed - that parents push their children, basically, since education costs increase and failure might not be an option:

The Korean Times writes:

"Korean households increased their monthly education spending by 33.2 percent to 494,000 won ($445) on average this year from 371,000 won in 2000.

According to the 2004 government survey of social statistics conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in June, among the 33,000 surveyed households, 10.1 percent said they spent over 1 million won on education per month, up from 5.9 percent four years ago."


(By Asia Business Consulting)

Beaten up for taking picture with camera phone

Camera phones are forbidden in Saudi Arabia but they are still very much around.

During a wedding, a bride has beaten up "a woman, completely destroyed her phone and pulled her by the hair in front of a big crowd of guests", after the woman took a picture of her in the all-women "section" during the ceremony.

Other guests applauded her for her vigilance.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Fast forwarding through commercials illegal?

Well, this is news from the US, so not applicable in Asia - yet. But there are attempts in the US that would make fast forwarding through commercials on television illegal.

How is this possible? "Because language that makes fast-forwarding through commercials illegal—no doubt inserted at the behest of lobbyists for the advertising industry—was inserted into a bill that would allow people to fast forward past objectionable sections of a recorded movie." No kidding.

Luckily, there is some opposition from some high level groups to it - Senator John McCain - who is Republican (see, they have some good guys!), said that: “Americans have been recording TV shows and fast-forwarding through commercials for 30 years. Do we really expect to throw people in jail in 2004 for behavior they’ve been engaged in for more than a quarter century?”

Interesting developments, across the world.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Porn Sites are Tracking Web Surfers with Spyware

This fits to what we have said the other day and what is also in discussion in Malaysia (and probably elsewhere) - if you visit porn websites, it is highly possible that you are not only subjected to numerous pop-ups but also that they install spyware and Trojan Horses on your computer.

Yahoo reports that a new study conducted by Eblocs.com reveals that 98% of porn sites use some type of Spyware or Adware. It continues that "the study also discovered that 95% of the porn sites install Spyware that creates pop-up ads that infiltrate computers at a later date. The most dangerous type of Spyware found on these sites is Browser Hijacks. This Spyware can cause computers to slow down to a crawl because the malicious downloaded content dominates system resources and bandwidth."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The push for more e-mail storage

According to a survey by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) nearly 10% of Chinese Internet users switched e-mail accounts from June to August this year because the service providers offered bigger storage.

34.1% got new e-mail accounts because they need more e-mail addresses, which was the No. 1 reason. The report also revealed that 83% of the e-mail users possessed one to three addresses, and 96.5% of Chinese netizens had free e-mail accounts, often featured by large storage capacities.

Big question - why do we need e-mail storages of this size? When GMail by Google was released, it was a big thing - everybody wanted to have one and the early limited distribution made it very desirable - so desirable that people traded the account on EBay. Than, GMail became a feature to store documents - and as more accounts one has, as more can be stored. Increasing spam can also be a reason why wants to have a larger account, although not everybody gets 4 million spam messages daily. So there are reasons for more e-mail storage

But why more than one e-mail address? Is it because we live in different situations? We give this e-mail to this group of people in this situation and that address to other people that we are connected with in other situations?

And why change e-mail addresses? Is it the fear of being tapped? I mean, okay, I have my handphone number - I don't change it every couple of months - I need to be reachable for friends, colleagues and business relations that know my number for a long time. It is the same with e-mail addresses, isn't it?

Interesting aspects, for sure, and something that marketers in companies could think about.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung successful in the US

We wrote recently that Samsung felt they were not that accepted or successful in the Western or the US market and saw this as a reason to revamb their advertising. To succeed, they also "plastered" the market with new models - introducing a new model every two weeks is quite a thing.

The numbers show their success - revenues in the US in 2004 more than doubled over 2003 to an expected US$4 billion - they sold 12 million phones in 2003 and up to October 2004, sold already 23 million phones. If this is not successful, we don't know how to define it.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

DoCoMo opts for Linux phones

"Japanese electronics giants NEC and Panasonic have jointly developed a Linux-based software platform which offers third-generation mobile phone users more services on their handsets."

Reason: Ease of integration of advanced multi-media applications and efficient use of software.

Is this huge? Well, Microsoft is trying to vow handset producers into using their operating system, and other software producers compete for a share of the pie as well. It is a win for Linux - gaining more acceptability after winning the with a leading telecommunications company.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

China planning cyberwar against Taiwan

We had a similar story last month with North Korea said to threaten South Korea with a cyberwar or cyberterror - but we rejected the idea. North Korea, so spending a lot of money on conventional weapons is surely not able to wage a cyberwar.

A threat by China towards Taiwan might be more in the cards. Both countries are technologically savvy. China always insisted that Taiwan will be reunited with the "Motherland" - peacefully or via war, so there might be some truth in the story.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Microsoft warns Asian governments of Linux lawsuits

Is this wrong propaganda or upcoming truth? There is always the big question if Linux is cheaper than Microsoft, considering all factors in the calculation. Governments of various countries have taken the calculation to different levels and switched to Linux for various, even other reasons. China switched, it is said, because they don't like to be too dependent on just one company and they are worried that Microsoft has a spy program in their software that would allow U.S. authorities to read all those documents on the government computers or switch them off if needed.

Now Microsoft, facing with a still growing Linux says that Linux violates more than 228 patents - and that those who switch to Linux might have to face lawsuits once WTO agreements are enforced in the Asian region.

Ballmer says that "Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property."

Well, may be by than, there is a different discussion ongoing about copyright issues, intellectual properties and even more, more competition is there threatening the giant.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

I don't want to be Bill Gates

At least, I don't want to be Bill Gates and get all the spam that he receives - we don't mind the dollars - and he receives 4 million spam mails a day! But than, Microsoft has its own department that is able to filter out all the spam - so Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO gets only about 10 that get through in its inbox. While Microsoft says they are working on antispam software, may be they should just show us their own tricks?

Most of those spams will be generated by robot machines - but there might be some who actually try to sell something to him via direct mail, because Ballmer says that he gives out his e-mail account in all his public speeches. True - they are the right target in the sense that they have the money - so why not, since the ROI on direct mail is so incredibly high?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

How about portable television sets?

Okay - there are television sets that can be carried around. But you cannot watch TV while on the move (besides those small ones installed in cars). LG just announced that they produced a "15 inch portable wireless LCD television which offers clear visuals everywhere at home while on the move. When the transmitter of this product is connected to an antenna, DVD player, or VCR, the transmitter sends radio signals to the monitor, producing the TV picture. One can watch television anywhere within 35 meters from where the transmitter is placed.".

It is a bit heavy, so, with 4 kg - but it is a start. Imagine, in 2 or 5 years time, we will carry TV like we carry PDAs - but then, we have PocketTV already anyway. So, no sure, what is so special at this one. Any idea?

Update:

We just received a link that shows us that "Nokia Finnish mobile phone powerhouse Nokia unveiled several new handsets at the company's annual Destination Nokia event held in Bangkok." Specifically, the model Nokia 7710 is standing out with numerous features, but also, that "its widescreen format is perfectly suited to watching live digital TV broadcasts.
Nokia promised such a service, dubbed DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast for Handsets), would revolutionise how we access entertainment on the move." Thanks Joey for the information.

Here is the phone:


Mobile TV by Nokia - The Model 7710

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Surging Online Game Exports

We mentioned it before - having the right social and physical infrastructure in mind helps an economy to surge ahead. Companies will then pick up the ball and run with it and in effect, trickle down effects will start and other companies will profit from it.

That is what is happening in Korea - they have their broadband network, they have the population that takes it up and uses it and now, they have a new business taking off. Korea’s online game exports have surged this year thanks to their increased popularity. "The Korea Game Development & Promotion Institute said the country’s accumulated exports of online games until November exceeded US$200 million for the first time, with the total expected to reach US$250 million for the whole year."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

E-mail marketing is successful

Who would have doubted it after our posting this week that a spammer earned up to US$750,000 a month by spamming people.

It simply showed that the Return on Investment made direct marketing - spamming or legitimate - a worthwhile the effort.

Now there are some more data out there supporting the effectiveness of direct mail from fraudulent and real companies.

"First, (...), e-mail had the sixth highest response rate (at around 1.12 percent) behind telemarketing (5.78 percent), dimensional mail (2.3 percent), catalogs (2.18 percent), direct mail (1.88 percent), and coupons (1.12 percent)."

The report however indicated that e-mail marketing came in second with regard to the return on investment (ROI) index in the report, only left behind telemarketing.

Why? Because it is cheap to send out e-mails - but companies need to realise that it might bother the remaining 99% of us that are also engulfed by their mail.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Staring at Computer Screens May Cause Blindness

Companies expect their employees to work longer and longer hours or, employees do so voluntarily. Whatever. Clear is that more of us sit in front of the computer and work for hours and hours, staring at the screen.

Now, a new study has found that "staring at a computer screen may raise the risk of glaucoma, a progressive eye disease that can lead to blindness." "emerged from a study in Japan of 10,000 workers with an average age of 43. It found a statistical link between heavy computer use and eye problems that presage glaucoma. The problems were more common among staff with existing vision defects such as short-sight or long-sight."

Okay, more research is probably needed, but may be we need to take a step back and look at something else, every now and than. Or, let's hope that medical advances will find cures or that technological advances will find the "magic computer screen."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Reaching out to your audience - Cafe USA in Korea

The US Embassy in S-Korea launched the first-ever online community about a week ago and has since been flooded with messages - messages that are not necessarily to their liking, apparently a lot of blatantly profane postings, some of which were deleted by a Web site manager.

Statements such as the following were posted:

"President Roh Moo-hyun should be removed from the presidency as he is set to ignore the ruling of the Constitutional Court against his plan to move the administrative capital out of Seoul" or "Down with the U.S. government’’ for its unilateral approach in international affairs."

The US top convey is of course not happy about the way the messaging goes - they would prefer some positive posting.

This reminds us of the controversy between Real Network and IPod users a couple of months ago - Real thought that everybody was on their side when they launched a tool that allowed their subscribers to get the songs from Real's network onto their IPod. Next, they opened a forum and closed it after they too were inundated by negative criticism.

This is real time feedback - what can we say? If you open up to the public, you shouldn't expect only positive feedback. There are people out there that don't like you. Live with it, communicate to them, converse with them and learn about their views. Not everybody likes the way the US is conducting themselves, just like not everybody liked the way Real Networks "battled" IPod.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Online advertising close to beating 2000 record

There have been a couple of good developments coming from the companies that understand online advertisements but our favourite is the way Amazon is conducting themselves.

Still, many companies see the Internet as a medium to broadcast their messages and disturb Internet users instead of connecting with them.

As such, we hope that those that use Internet advertising finally get it - currently online advertising is growing strongly at 30%, and online ads for the first nine months of 2004 have already topped US$7 billion. The industry hopes to surpass the US$7.3 billion generated in 2003 and even the US$8 billion placed in 2000 appear to be a stone's throw away.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

The Road to Mobile Broadband Runs Through Korea

The Feature has a great article about the future of mobile communications in Korea. Worthwhile a read.

"Koreans have long been leaders in adopting and developing mobile communications, but they have an old saying: 'Test even a stone bridge before crossing it.' So it is fitting that their planned mobile broadband access system, called WiBro (for wireless broadband), will be the first country-wide network to serve as a testing ground for what may become the leading international technology for mobile broadband: mobile WiMAX."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

'Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread'

We said it again and again - the business model that the recording industry currently embraces is on its way out but they fail to see a way out. Instead they are punishing those that download music. Even music groups, such as Metallica, still don't really get it, and retailers complain that no one is buying music from them anymore.

But there is movement, of course. South Korean handset producers that support the download of music. Even Sony or Indie Label K7 start getting it, together with singers and bands like David Bowie.

Now Wired publishes an interview with Wilco's front man Jeff Tweedy, and he talks wonderfully about his ideas about music and the recording industry. Wilco came to fame in 2001 when they released their music for free on the web in 2001. What is he saying?

"A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.

People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property. I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic."

What a great statement!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Will South Koreans migrate to North Korea?

This is a challenging headline, of course, but that is what South Korean leaders fear and that is the reason, why they ban a North Korean website from their Korea's Kim Il-sung University to stop the communist state's ideology from spreading among the South's Internet-savvy young (according to an official). "The Korean-language Web site offers distance learning and replaces 42 years of educational radio broadcasts."

Are South Korean leaders so uncertain about their own youth that they think they will convert to communist ideology? Isn't it the case that something that is in "hiding or forbidden" is way more attractive than something that is in the open and can be discussed? Don't they think that their own system and its attractive side-effects will be able to wither the confrontation with North Korean ideology? Okay they are still in the stage of cease fire, but isn't it time to move on?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Teacher downloads porn in class

Hm - is this the right way to teach? A schoolteacher in Australia has been caught downloading pornography from a work computer while in class - and his intention was probably not to teach biology or so. The question is what went on during class while he downloaded porn?

And, did he do it to avoid higher telephone charges at home, and push them onto the school account since the telephone line could be hijacked and might rack up international direct-dial (IDD) charges for calls to an island somewhere in the South Pacific. Just kidding.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Chinese Government bags 'Internet Villain' Award

Future Publishing awarded its first "Internet Villain" award to the Chinese government for its hard line against the online world. "With its crackdown on online porn, political censorship and its decision to close thousands of internet cafes, authorities in China have managed to beat some of the net's nastiest people to win the award."

We have described many times the different battles that the government fought, which in some cases, also let to restiction to the access of Google's search engine, for example, but that this could be a way to pounce the "bad guys". Recently, some of those that used China as a base for their activities, were send to jail.

Well, at least someone is paying attention to it and "awarded the effort" (although the article does not make it quite clear if it is a positive or a negative award for China).

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Pfizer enters broadband arena with videostreaming advertisements

Pfizer Healthcare commissioned a study and found out that "the ads that promoted its Pfizer Consumer Healthcare products and were streamed on the net were equally effective as television advertising in generating brand interest and conveying a distinctive and memorable message, as well as influencing viewers."

They intend to enter the broadband arena now as an innovative and new way to connect with the consumer.

We sure hope so. There is not much information about the background of the study or sampling methodology in the study, but it is frequently the case that companies that commission a study find their original thinking confirmed. Can we assume from the little that is written in the story that they interviewed consumers without broadband access? Sure not, but we hope that it is possible to skip the ad if one has got dial-access to the web only. Or, that the ad is interesting and short enough to keep interest awake. Too often, ads are company centric and the internet seen as a broadcasting medium for companies instead of a way to really interact with consumers, like other companies that experimented with this before.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Spammer earned up to US$750,000 a months

Slashdot describes the case of a spammer who earned between US$400,000 and US$750,000 a month.

He would send out 10 million e-mails a day and received between 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails monthly.

His comment, when sentenced to a 9-year jail sentence? "When you're marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there."

And this despite all the warnings and educational campaigns out there warning of spam and phishing and so on.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung, Samsung, Samsung - not again

It becomes a bit boring to write about Samsung's new introductions into the markets but what can we do? It just was reported that the company now developed the world's lightest laptop computer (Dell, can you hear me?). This follows their introduction of the world's first 1-Gig memory chip, a world's first 7-Megapixel Digital Camera and the world's first 5-Megapixel Camera Phone, and yes, the world's first Samsung developed the first handset with a hard drive of 1.5 GB as well (thanks Izuan - it is just too much development by Samsung to keep track of the individual developments).

"This product (the laptop) can go for a maximum of 3 hours and 30 minutes with one battery, and seven hours if used with a high-capacity battery. Its No-Fan technology drastically reduces cooling fan noise." (Izuan points correctly out that a No Fan Technology should eliminate Fan Noise and not simply reduce it. Is it that semantics lack behind the development of technology? (see comments))

Their plan is to compete in the compete in the sub-notebook market currently dominated by Japanese companies - but t won't be long until the start moving up.

Its CEO Jong-Yong Yun once said that the company is "like a snowball that rolls down a big hill."

They have big plans - they want to beat Nokia in the handphone market, for example, which is a tough target considering that they are a distant number 2 in the mobile phone market anyway. But hey - who knew Samsung 10 year ago? Hardly anybody. But to keep the pressure up, they apparently introduce a new handphone every two weeks in the American market. Their current research budget is US$3 billion - which they plan to double. Samsung already employs 20,000 researchers and they plan to hire some more.

They have their problems, sure - in the Western world they are still seen as a Korean copycat, and have a big image problem, despite all their successes, although they want to change this with a revamp of their advertisement. So - one thing is sure - they will keep the pressure up on their competitors and will surely delight their customers.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Failures in outsourcing

Outsourcing is big business and sometimes, companies seemed to fall all over each other to be the first to outsource.

This is dangerous, because basic precautions are easily neglected, often for the of cost savings only.

Now KPMG comes out with a study saying that while the supplier might be meeting contract terms, they fell short of meeting promises.
"customers were now less interested in issues like the ability to roll-out new technologies, and much more interested in 'human' criteria like cultural fit, and quality."

This is a normal development so - in the beginning, companies more or less fall over each other to outsource and basically look for technology, technology and technology. There is than not much thinking about quality, just cost. However, after a while, mistakes or challenges come into the open, and, additionally, the market saturates somewhat. Or, the supplier is not as reliable as it seems in the beginning. More complaints are made by customers. There are enough stories around where the outsources are paid by the number of calls they handle in one shift - what means, they have to get rid of the caller as fast as possible. This is just one scenario.

Of course there are other companies that are in the business for a longer time and have been able to deliver to their clients. But they might be a bit more expensive. Which, again, is a function of demand and supply.

There is the saying that might be applicable here: You pay peanuts and get monkeys. So, if you are willing to pay more for good service, be prepared to pay more. In addition, companies are advised to do their homework before they outsource. Simply check the outsourcer under consideration as one would check other suppliers with whom you are working.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Prepaid system to pay for your electricity

This is a pretty interesting proposal made by Tenaga Nasional (Malaysia), the Malaysian electricity provider.

The system is meant to be more customer friendly - no more queuing up to pay your electricity bills. Instead, you pay first via a smartcard that can be reloaded at petrol stations and sundry shops.

This is great benchmarking - how to take something successful from elsewhere and apply it to your own operations. It is even better, since it takes out one of the most dreadful tasks anyone can encounter - the queues and the endless waiting.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Marketing to niche groups

Healthcare is a market that is growing fast. Population is aging, a lot of people are into reverse aging and living a healthier lifestyle.

Those are the markets that LG and Samsung are marketing to with their new handsets. How?

Samsung Electronics presented a brand-new cellular phone, which can measure one’s fat level. "After entering one’s name, weight, and height, a slight touch of the finger on the measuring device displays one’s body fat level. The measured data can be estimated by daily, weekly, and monthly units in a graphical chart."

A so-called diabetes hand set was released by LG Electronics back in July 2004. This handset, equipped to measure blood-sugar levels, not only manages blood-sugar level, diet, and medication prescriptions, but also provides long-distance medical consultations.

A growing market is entered by companies that observe certain developments. They don't just develop handsets for the sake of handsets, but those that can be positioned in a certain segment. They won't need to market it the traditional way, but could break into new distribution channel. Next time at your doctor, he might just ask you to change your model.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Google's index doubles

A couple of weeks back, the number below the searchbar of Google stood at 4 billion plus webpages indexed.

Yesterday, a new number started to pop up - Its index nearly dobled now - it now stands at 8 billion plus. Congratulations to a company that gets constantly better and is different as well.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Japan to ban prepaid mobile phones - a story continues

We weren't quite sure if it it really true when we reported last month that the Japanese government is considering to outlaw prepaid mobile phones based on the argument that too many crimes are being committed.

It appears to be true.

The European Business Community in Japan now criticised a "plan by Japan's ruling coalition to present a bill to the Diet, possibly during the current session, to ban the use and sales of prepaid cell phones."

We have to reiterate the statement that this means to punish those who use prepaid in its intentded context just because some misuse the product. In short: Look at technology instead of culbrits.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

DoCoMo's i-mode enters Australia and Israel

DoCoMo and its i-mode struggled over the last couple of years. I-mode is a mobile internet service that provides subscribers with access to multimedia content, e-mail, games and other applications and services through their mobile handsets, which made headways during the dot-com boom up to its collapse around 2001. Many of their investments overseas went underwater.

Over the last couple of years they were under siege in their own territory, Japan.

Only in recent months were they able to regain some of their ground in Japan again.

Now, it appears, that new leadership changes direction successfully and DoCoMo expands again. Just about three weeks back, they roped in Singapore Telecommunications so that their populations now can place videophone calls to each other.

Now, DoCoMo becomes available in Israel after Cellcom Israel and NTT DoCoMo announced an agreement to launch i-mode in the country. On its footsteps is the announcement that i-mode will be made available in Australia through Telstra.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

We want user-centric broadband!

Survey results have been released that show that around 88% of Asians polled in a study are interested in "user-centric broadband" applications. These applications are defined by Alcatel as a unified network infrastructure that allows users to easily access any broadband service from any device, with a single identity.

The study was conducted online amongst 2,779 users of Microsoft's MSN network across 12 Asia Pacific markets.

It has to be clear that, while the results are interesting, the data are very bias. Online surveys are skewed towards a segment that are at least somewhat tech-savvy or knowledgeable. It is not clear how "user-centric broadband applications" are defined in the limited space of online questionnaires. And sure, there are no commercial interests of Alcatel or MSN.

But it is probably true that Malaysians, for example, who lack the broadband availability or download speed but are aware of the capabilities of a Korea or a Japan, surely want to have better access, faster rollout of those services to simply be able to match the capacities of those two countries. So, while many people dream about the availabity of broadband connections, other countries already dream of future applications, such as intelligent houses in Australia.

Though one big technology package that allows you to phone home and control just about every home appliance is devilishly complex and prohibitively expensive, that's where home-automation is heading. Microsoft and Intel are only two of the big IT brands that are developing software architecture that will enable appliances to talk to each other.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Check controlled items via SMS in Malaysia

It is said that traders and retailers like to increase prices of their goods in Malaysia when a number of holidays is approaching. Currently, there is the Festival of Lights (or Deepavali) for the Indian population, next is the end of the fasting month, followed by Christmas and than Chinese New Year - not to forget the New Year celebrations.

So there are lots of chances to sneak in some price increases, however, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Department will launch a service for customers to check prices of controlled food items via telephone or short messaging system.

We just hope that it all works out just fine.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Samsung develops the world's first 1-Gig Memory Chip

Innovations, improvements and so on are the landmark of leading companies. Just look what Samsung has introduced over the last couple of weeks - they introduced the first mobile phone with a 5-megapixel camera. Next came the 7-megapixel camera, standalone.

Now, Samsung Electronic has developed a 1-gigabyte fusion memory chip for the first time in the world. This follows the 512 megabytes which were also developed by Samsung in September last year. Already at that time those had the largest capacity of existing fusion memory chips.

There is just one challenge for a market leader such as this - is it possible for their clients to keep up, as it might be for their competitors (also Samsung won't care too much for them)? However, as a conglomerate, they might just serve their own products to their units in order to introduce breathtaking products to their customers. We like it, do you?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

How valuable is your country?

A Korea Institute of Industrial Policy Studies (IPS) came out with a study that Korea's brand value is falling.

Korea ranked 12th among 36 countries surveyed. The United States had the greatest national brand value of US$3.2 trillion, trailed by Germany with US$1.7 trillion and Japan with US$1 trillion.

The IPS attributed the deterioration of Korea’s brand value to the fading of Korea’s friendly image as the host country of the 2002 World Cup finals among foreigners and to the inclusion of Hong Kong in the survey subjects.

However, leading Korean brands, such Samsung or LG were actually able to increase the value of their brands - based on the value they deliver to their customers. So we are not to far away from our praise of those companies and their ability to shake up markets, develop exciting brand experiences or even rebrand their identity.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Spending your time on the Internet

Well, the Internet influences everything - even how we read or, better, receive news.

The European Interactive Advertising Association found that people are spending more time on the internet than they are reading magazines and newspapers.

"Online use constitutes 20% of total media consumption in the UK. This compares with 7% of time spent reading magazines and 10% reading newspapers, with users spending 27% of their time listening to the radio. TV still represents the largest share of media time at 36%, but nearly a third of those online claimed to watch less TV as result of using the internet."

Good news for those able to reach out to users of the Internet - bad news for those that depend on traditional media. Especially when you consider that many of the ads that are shown on television might be playing to a non-existing audience. People might be something else.

Interesting as well that of the 1,000 people interviewed, a third stated that online advertising was relevant to them -- with 70% saying that there is too much advertising on TV - and half believed that internet advertising was from forward-thinking brands.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Achieve marks - get computer

Take care what you promise your children! A woman in China promised her son a computer when he would make certain grades in the school examination. He did make the marks and even exceeded them - but his mother said no due to financial constraints.

So, since he learnt some lessons about law from her in her practice, he took her to court. It is not clear if he finally got the computer, but The Star (Malaysia) says that the judge tried to concile the parties.

At least, this is one clever boy - knows law already!

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Short films to debut on Amazon.com

Slowly but surely, some pioneer companies make the transition to online advertisement that doesn't upset their audience. These are the companies that are breaking with their past and understand that the Internet is interactive and that users of the Internet understand which content they want and which content they reject. Examples for this type of companies are American Express, BMW and they are now joint by Amazon.

Amazon is not changing their business strategy with regard to advertising - they still don't do television advertising and believe in word of mouth and customer satisfaction to the extreme (if this is possible. This means that the items displayed in the short movies are not in the face of the audience, but subtly displayed in the background.

As Jeff Bezos says:

"The short films are a "great example of Amazon's relentless commitment to finding new and innovative ways to surprise and delight customers and deliver an unparalleled online experience."

(By Asia Business Consulting)

LG - and they will do it again

We are not sure how many will still remember the brandname "Goldstar". This was back in the 1980s and beginning 1990s, and products such as television from this company were mainly bought when one needed something cheap, which also came, well, with lower quality.

Than, towards the end of the decade, the company decided to go upstream - and started to rebrand themselves successfully into LG.

It was doing it so successfully that it was voted to the top slot of Information Technology 100 companies list.

Another sign of success might be that the company "found out that between January 2003 and October 2004 more than 200 companies operating under the name "LG.""

Their ambitions grow higher now and it might also be inspired by the greatness of the great competitor, Samsung Electronics.

They now intend to be known as a household brand in both Korea and the world and to do this, they have formed "a brand management committee that will oversee a wide range of activities from brand renovations to stepping up vigilance against fraudulent use of their trademarks."

But for a company that makes the point to celebrate its employees, changes business models and has successfully undertaken a rebranding before, this shouldn't be major challenge.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Look into my eyes, baby, and I tell you how ill you are

Wasn't it Humphrey Bogart who said this? Well, he isn't working in a hospital right now however, but USA Today writes about a new instrument that can be used to determine your health.

Pretty interesting, and another show of development for improvements in the health sector, following our story last week 1,500 doctors watched a live 3-D transmission of a surgery performed in a Henry Ford hospital in Detroit.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

One strong sector benefits others

Korea also begins to emerge as a global center for gaming - which in major part is due to its strength in the broadband penetration and usage. All in all, the Korean market has already captured 30% of the total.

It goes so far as to say that international game developers are releasing their major titles in Korea before anywhere else.

This is a sign that new technology influences the development of not just one sector but trickers effects on other sectors as well - something easily said but frequently forgotten. As such, it is important to stay in the game, when you can and as long as you are strong - and not to kick yourself out voluntarily.

(by Asia Business Consulting)

Korea's new business model in the music industry

Finally, something appears to move in the music industry, at least from the companies's side of the fence. Consumers download songs anyway, legal or illegal and the prevalence all across the countries of "pirated music" just shows that the traditional business model simply doesn't work anymore.

Korea is a bit special, anyway. Some of the mobile operators or even the handset producers have produced handsets capable of playing MP3 - much to the dismay of the local recording industry.

LG was at the forefront of these develoments and now, they did it again, once again.

They have just signed a "free MP3 files" contract with popular music groups, causing strong objection from other competitors and music groups - of course.

Subsequently, all "LG Telecom subscribers may download MP3 music files to their cellular phones without payment from November till June 2005, under the condition that LG Telecom pays the music development fund US$9 million."

Competitors oppose the move but mainly objecting to the fact that they paid a monthly copyright fee for music files, which came to about half of what LG paid in total.

We are not sure, but doesn't LG's move look more clever, more daring in developing a new model? Isn't boldness a step forward, pushing the boundaries of what is known before a way to remain competitive? We believe they have great reasons to do this and it sure attracts attention in the marketplace.

(by Asia Business Consulting)

Business evolution - from video to ... to DVD - what's next?

A long, long time back, there was the song called "Video kills the radio star". It didn't happen, as there were marketforces that kept the radio in place. But the song described a movement to constant upgrades of technology - remember our short write-up about the effect of smartphones that eat into PDA's share of the market? There is nothing to worry about.

Now, there is the scream in Australia that from next year onwards, it will be hard to find films on video, since videos are displaced by DVDs. So what? Who has got a videorecorder at home? If you have one, it probably is a pretty old model.

What will come after DVD? Well, how about Netflix? Oh wait - there is Amazon.com, and the rumours that Amazon might be interested in buying Netflix.

Anyway, this is a sign of further product evolution. So be happy, don't worry!

By the way - we skipped the description of how VCDs came into being in Asia - readers in the Western World wouldn't know about VCDs, since those are typical Asian products.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

No 3G in the Philippines or: How to kick yourself out of the race

The Philippines are known to be the capital of SMS. On average, those with a mobile phone send an astonishing 466 SMS in a month which is way above the Asian average. There are certain reasons for this, of course, since calls are more expensive than a SMS - still.

The way for the Philippines would be to build up on this strength. However, apparently, the "Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) is to ask its own government to put back the deadline for bids in the country's 3G licence auction. According to press reports, the powerful PLDT does not yet believe that the time is right for mobile operators to start work on rolling out expensive new networks." This is also the opinion of other mobile companies such as Globe or Smart (which is part of PLDT). They say it would take between four and six more years for the 3G market to develop, as consumers cannot afford yet the cost of 3G handsets.

What they forget is that the prices of handsets will decline rapidly, once they are launched. What is more serious so, is that the Philippines might lose the race to atop one of its major strong points and develop it further. That is sad.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Optus outsources customer service

Optus Australia is close to completing a comprehensive review of its customer service operations which is likely to result in some of the 3500 jobs in the area moving offshore.

This comes as its growth is slowing down - another market is facing saturation, more companies need to look for more growth strategies.

Optus decided to outsource its customer service, following the example of mobile rival Hutchison, which now has the majority of its Australian call centre operations in India. It continues to show that outsourcing is not necessarily restricted to the US alone, but that business across the globe take related actions.

Again - while it is clear that companies need to streamline operations and we are supporting the need for outsourcing or offshoring, as it is the natural trend of businesses to look for better sourcing, outsourcing of customer service is also something that can endanger the relationship between a company and its customers or clients, if not done correctly.

(By Asia Business Consulting)

Global Internet Scam - you can run but you cannot hide

Phishing is growing, as reported recently and Australia plays its own role in it.

However, every now and than someone gets caught and sentenced for the "bad deeds" done. This time, someone in Australia got caught, and sentenced to 4 years in prison. The sad part is that there are many more to go, that the crime is lucrative and that people still fall for it.

(By Asia Business Consulting)