New services from Google Korea

Ok, just noticed Google Korea (www.google.co.kr) updated its site and launched some new services that have been brewing for while in the Google Korea R&D center… (who knows if down the road if you see it elsewhere but for now it seems exclusive to the Korean market).

Namely:

• Q&A search,
• Topic search,
• and its Korean blog service, Textcube (the “Blogger” of Korea which Google acquired not too long ago).

Not exactly sure WHEN they did… but that just goes to show you how different the Korean market is. READ: no one actually uses Google Korea much for search in Korea (Currently, Google Korea has about 2-3% of the search market share). Google Korea has been tweeking the front page for a while… even had animated icons for a while (recently removed for simple image icons). And they had blog search and dictionary search, youtube and others services on the front page to reflect the market, but this is first I’ve noticed they launched those services publicly.

Note: the previously ADDED drop-down menu to Google Korea.. is now.. gone again. lol.
Not surprising, considering just when Google ADDED it, market leader Naver REMOVED it from there search box (after years and years of having it). Seems google is still one-step behind on that front. heh. (Naver and Daum also increase their search box size over a year ago). *sigh*

Anyway.. here’s the quick rundown…

Q&A SEARCH

is basically a meta search of othere Q&A type search engines (think Yahoo Answers) sans the most important one: Naver (who blocks Google’s crawler and somewhat defeats the purpose considering Naver Q&A Knowledge search is the most dominant type of search in Korea).

aside:  DID YOU KNOW?   Yahoo Answers is basically just benchmarked off the Yahoo Korea serivce, which in turn is a copy of the Korean knowledge search pioneered by Naver.

Knowledge (Q&A/Answers) is prevalent generally the most common/default type of search as has been for near the last decade.

Google Korea Q&A search looks to basically be a like meta search engine for now, but it seems to imply that Google Answers 2.0 (ie: free) might make a come back at one point (pure speculation).

TOPIC SEARCH

is basically a trending topic aggregator. Hot topics from news and around the Korea blog and community web.

Search Hot Topics around Korea

TEXTCUBE (BLOG)

is blogging service acquired by Google Korea not too long ago. Its good to see its actually being implemented into its services… and I am looking forward to digging into the service now that’s integrated with Google officially.

I’ve used it pre-Google acquisition and actually like a lot better than almost ANY other blogging service found in “the West”. Basically the Wordpress of Korea. Of course, WordPress has the bagillion plugins and third-party stuff which makes it a killer blog service, but as an “out of the box” product… I’d take Textcube anyday. There is a large Textcube blogging community as is, but now with Google resources and integration, maybe we’ll see some more robust developer community support as well.

There are ton of bells-and-whistles that will give most users more than they have ever seen without delving into the third-party world.

Here’s the one I made in 20 seconds flat (including the post. heh) without activating any of the default widgets and plugins:
Richard Min’s KBlog

Made in 20 seconds

The timing for launch is right given the local exodus away from local blog services due to recently implemented government real-name restrictions .

ie:
1) Insane number of default features
2) slick graphics
3) Korea internet speeds
4) Google resources.
5) trend towards international hosted blog services

I wouldn’t be surprised if Google is just testing it here to eventually move outside the Korean walled-garden.

Bottomline:
It is FAR superior to Blogger in everyway I’ve seen (except social net connections which is expected from a Korean service and would be easy to implement later anyway.)

If it builds a nice set of third-party plugins it would attractive even in Western markets. But its solid as is. Wordpressers wouldn’t be disappointed.

Why no English version? (Korean only available). It wouldn’t take more than a few days to offer a few English version as well. Why NOT?

OVERALL:

Very good moves and new services from Google Korea!

Will it be enough for Google Korea search to gain traction or make a significant impact in the market? Probably not. Its pretty much going to more interesting for everyone OUTSIDE of Korea than in Korea.

You might just be looking at the future of services coming to you all soon(er or later).

@Richard Min
for InfoNet Digital

Related Posts

1. What up with Google Korea? Part 1
2. Google Korea vs Naver

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