Facebook Introduces Official Korean-Language Page

Facebook’s official Page now has a Korean version, featuring how-to guides to the site and a directory of Korean Pages, all in Korean. The Page could help spur growth in South Korea by giving fellow Korean Facebook users a common place to find each other, and explaining the site’s features and uses to those without knowledge of another language.

The Page’s updates have been a combination of translations of posts made to the English-language Facebook Page, and country-specific links to Korean blogs and celebrities. Its directory of “Other Pages” lists Korean news outlets like Chosun.com, local commerce sites like TicketMonster, and Korean musicians Beast.

South Korea has long been a holdout from widespread Facebook adoption, primarily because other social networks gained a significant presence in the advanced digital market while Facebook was focusing its attention elsewhere. Local social network Cyworld, founded in 1999, had 18 million users, more than 1/3 of the country’s population, in 2006.

However, Mark Zuckerberg says the country is a primary target in 2010, a claim supported by this translation. Facebook for iPhone’s June 2010 update included a Korean localization. The company is also hiring sales engineers for a small, unannounced office opening in South Korea.

Meanwhile, the country’s Facebook population has grown by more than 75% in the last three months, with 1.26 million monthly active users as of last month, according to our Inside Facebook Gold data.

Conquering South Korea could be significant for Facebook’s revenues as well as total user base. The country is known for its enthusiastic gaming, with Cyworld pulling in $7 a year per user in 2006 through the sale of virtual goods. As Facebook now makes 30% on the sales of goods bought with Facebook Credits, expanding in South Korea and getting those users addicted to Facebook’s top-tier social games could prove very lucrative.

Full data on Facebook’s audience growth throughout Europe and in countries around the world is presented in the July 2010 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor report, available through Inside Facebook Gold. An Inside Facebook Gold membership also includes data on language growth, audience demographics by country, and user behavior stats for the Facebook business ecosystem. To learn more about membership, please visit Inside Facebook Gold.

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2 Responses to “Facebook Introduces Official Korean-Language Page”

  1. Redes Sociales says:

    Good for Facebook. Have you guys check the facebook trends at Korea?

  2. Quora says:

    Why is Facebook not very popular in Korea?…

    The culture of South Korea is quite parochial, partially due to language pride and partly due to patriotism. It wasn’t until August 2010 that Facebook finally translated many of its key assets into the Korean language (http://www.insidefacebook.com/20...

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