Korea’s Internet portals and online information service providers are
struggling for advantageous positions in the future cyber space by further
broadening their service categories.
Major Internet portal sites such as Yahoo! Korea and Hanmail.Net Online are
trying to expand their service domain into that of PC communications
services,
while online information service firms announced that they will launch
Internet portal services soon.
Yahoo! Korea, the front-runner in portal site, plans to introduce
such new services as free e-mail service, bulletin, chatting and other
services during the second half of this year. Also, it will offer such
additional services as Internet shopping malls and various content
related to daily life.
Other portal sites such as Naver, one of the nation’s leading search sites,
are on the same track as Yahoo! by moving away from being just a search site.
In the number of registered users or daily traffic, Korea’s major Internet
portal sites have already outpaced major online information services. For
instance, Hanmail.Net Online, Daum
Communication’s free e-mail service, has
secured more than 1.7 million registered users, surpassing Chollian’s 1.6
million subscribers.
At the same time, PC communications services announced one after another
their programs to offer Internet portal service as one of their major
business plans for 1999.
Industry analysts say that the boundary between local Internet portal and
online information service is getting more unclear and even meaningless as
the
two sides compete fiercely by penetrating into each other’s service territory.
“If there is a difference between portal and PC communication service in
the future, it will be a fact that PC communication service is charged
service and portal is free.” said Youm Jin-Sub, president of Yahoo! Korea.
“It is a question whether the current brand-power of online information
services will maintain its power on the Internet, too.” he added.
However, it seems that most online information service providers consider
the matter quite differently.
“I believe electronic commerce is the highlight of the Internet. What is
most important in the electronic commerce is a trust. And, we have it.”
said a Chollian official.
“Our subscribers are proved in their identity, and
differ completely from casual users of portal sites wandering here and there,
and this is our advantage over Internet portals especially in electronic
commerce.”
