US online social network MySpace on Tuesday launched a Korean service to try to penetrate a highly competitive market dominated by local players, officials said. The service, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has exclusive features tailored to local users such as "minilogs," a type of online notebook in which users can make daily jottings.
MySpace faces strong competition from local firms such as market leader Cyworld, which commands some 18 million users running blog-style homepages and uploading photos, comments and other multimedia contents.
"We don't think MySpace will pose a great threat to our service, which is based on strong off-line group ties," Cyworld spokeswoman Shin Hee-Jung told AFP.
"There is a positive factor. The Korean service of MySpace is expected to enlarge the domestic market," she said. MySpace president Chris DeWolfe has arrived in Seoul for talks with industry personnel and Internet users, Yonhap news agency said.
South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with some 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. But it has largely shunned popular overseas services. The world's top Internet search engine Google, which launched a Korean-language site in 2000, has been striving to boost its presence here.
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