I have been talking to some old Korean friends about the mobile web. I showed them my iPhone and gave them a quick demo of the mobile web experience on the iPhone. I told them it was the best mobile web experience the West has to offer and they reacted appropriately: “Where is the Flash?” they asked. They got me. There was no Flash.
My Western friends here have told me that the mobile web in Korea is virtually (no pun intended) useless. Although Koreans are very Internet savvy, and broadband penetration in this country is incredible, the mobile web I have seen has been fairly lackluster. Apparently, the web is highly state controlled, but this is something I will have to do more research about. Another reason I have heard, is that Korean websites are very Flash intensive, and Flash has not been ported to many Korean phones either.
Another reason for a poor mobile web could be the data costs. Although some of my Korean friends have said data is expensive, I’ve read white papers saying the contrary. According to ConsumerEase Publishing, data in SK is among the cheapest in the world. Look at this breakdown of sending photos via mobile:
Unlike some American operators, South Korean operators only charge for the packets to send a photo taken on a device to other e-mail addresses. In general, the cost is around $0.013 (a little over a penny) to take a picture and send it to someone. No monthly subscriptions are required.
In any case, this is an issue I would like to get a final verdict on. I will be judging a mobile content awards at Mobile Content 2008 and I will make sure to make this a high priority in my discussions with Koreans. I’m really looking forward to this conference.
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Korea is not Flash dependent, it’s actually IE/ActiveX dependent. An overview here:
http://www.web20asia.com/299
And the government control is probably a reference to the to the Korean middleware system (WIPI) which is one reason why iPhone and other phones aren’t sold here.