As MySpace continues to expand around the world it faces different problems and challenges in different regions. It’s latest launch is into Korea, an area of the world well-known it’s advanced use of technology.
Unlike other versions of the social networking site, MySpace Korea is attempting to appeal to Koreans with the introduction of some more advanced features. For example, the Korean site has a service called Minilog, that is meant to work a lot like Twitter and allows users a form of micro-blogging.
Users can also skin their MySpace giving it a more unique look and feel. The skins are currently being created by local artists ensuring a high-quality of production and therefore encouraging their use.
MySpace’s ultimate goal is to attract users to its service and away from rivals such as Facebook. With Korea, however, it has another equally important objective in the form of attracting programmers from the area to help improve its service.
They are hoping the new features on the site, coupled with the OpenSocial-based development platform it employs will attract not only social networkers, but techies as well to the service.
Read more at CNET
Matthew’s Opinion
I think treating each region as a separate entity and devoting a team to it will work for the service as a whole rather than against it. Korea is the perfect example where they feel they have to introduce new features to attract users. The benefit of this is MySpace now has working microblogging and a skinning feature, which should easily be transferable to other versions of MySpace.
Introducing the equivalent of MiniLog to MySpace across Europe and the U.S. will surely spike interest and use and potentially increase the user base and the existing community’s interactions further.
After Korea the launch of MySpace India will occur, which again is a totally different region. No special features have been announced for that other than it being developed with English as the first language of the site rather than Indian.
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