• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Information Technology Applications Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.369-373
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• 2005

Virtual Communities are many and varied have been around for a number of years now. Cyworld has all the makings of a successful website, with its unique and profitable business model. Our purpose in studying Cyworld is two fold ; we want to know the motivations people have for using the service and why they are willing to pay to use it. This study is based on motivation theory and flow theory to enhance our understanding of Cyworld user's behavior.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.109-125
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• 2013

As the number of SNS users is increasing, it has been very important how companies use SNS strategically. As a result, studies have been performed for the utilization of SNS. Most of the studies, however, focused on the overall characteristics of SNS and did not consider the characteristics of individual SNS. This study classified the main purpose of SNS use as relation-oriented purpose and information-oriented purpose, and identified the types of SNS from two viewpoints : service type and openness. Based on the classification, this study identified the characteristics of Cyworld, Facebook, and Twitter respectively, and analyzed the difference of the purpose of SNS users according to the characteristics of each service. The results showed that more users had the information-oriented purpose in the order of Twitter, Facebook, and Cyworld. There was no difference in the relation-oriented purpose among the three services. The analyses of the motive to join a group or a party made similar results. The results of additional analyses showed that the ratio of users with many acquaintances was high in the order of Facebook, Twitter, and Cyworld. In addition, more users checked their timeline or news feed more frequently in the order of Facebook, Twitter, and Cyworld.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.128-146
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• 2008

Cyworld has created a new social phenomenon that relationship between people and communities could be built by committing to digital writing. It has altered the way of people's writing attitudes from self-confessed to self-describing and self-broadcasting ways in which one regards oneself as the center of the cyber world. The purpose of this paper is to identify the shift in one's writing attitudes and how he/she develops technologies of the self in the Cyworld space. Quantitative and qualitative methods support the result; The analysis of 100 Cyworld users' mini-homepages show how the visual images in Cyworld affects their way of digital writing and the analysis of the change of writing habit due to sharing data how virtual 'family' that has been created by Cyworld. I categorize the characteristics of digital writing into three; 1)Visualization of technologies of the self 2)Networked technologies of the self 3)Sharing secretes. The aim of writing in Cyworld is not to keep the secrete but to share and, eventually, texts are circulated in the networked society where one is participated(Cyworld family). Therefore, the usage of images plays a significant role in Cyworld communities because the opened secretes are usually prepared to be presented on the basis of trustworthy toward other members.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.991-1002
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• 2010

Nowadays, personal media is a new tool for communication as digital cameras and mobile phones are developing rapidly. We are concerned over Cyworld users who could have different personal characteristics which will influence on buying patterns in on line shopping behaviors. The purpose of this research was to observe fashion attitudes and purchase behavior of Cyworld mini homepage users, for establishing marketing strategies by understanding consumers. For this study, one line survey was used for 500 male and female subjects who are 20 to 40 years old. Only reliable 441 questionnaires were used for analysis. The SPSS program was used for frequency, K-means cluster, t test, and chi-square test. A total of 441 respondents were clustered on the basis of 8 item self-disclosure scale, using the K-means procedures. The results indicated that respondents were clustered into two segments; 267 respondents(active attitude towards self-disclosure) and 164 ones(not active). We examined fashion attitudes in mini home page and buying behavior by self-disclosed variable. Those who are involved actively in self expression and self-disclosure considered more fashion style and trend. The major motivates of web surfing was finding a good design, and good price. High self-disclosure group tends to search many shopping mall for right design and low self disclosure group tends to search them for the right price. High self-disclosure group tend to shop the fashion products more, while low self disclosure group tend to purchase books more through the internet. We realized that active group in self-disclosure purchased their clothing accidently when they visit Cyworld.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.60
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• pp.150-171
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• 2012

According to the result of the online survey of SNS users, SNS users' use motivations consist of 'information', 'participation', and 'interaction'. SNS use motivations explain characteristics of an individual SNS very well. SNS users that aim to collect information use much more the SNS for communication like 'Twitter' and 'Me2day' than other SNS. SNS users that aim to participate in communication through SNS use much more 'Cyworld' that is joined by the most subscriber. And SNS users that aim to interact with other users use much more the SNS for network like 'Facebook' and 'Cyworld'. This tendency can also be seen in the use hours and access times of SNS by SNS use motivations. Meanwhile, the SNS Users that aim to collect information and interact with other users positively rate SNS messages. On the other hand, the SNS Users that aim to participate in communication through SNS negatively rate those. This confirms that SNS use motivations affect SNS users' recognition of SNS messages.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.3-13
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• 2004

On today, online community that is irrespective to geometrical area and time has been appeared by information technology and development of internet. It has been significant decision method of a personal and company. And online community is variously classified by it's purpose. Among online community, online game community is be roughly classed as community in online game and community in related online game. Community in related online game community is means for interchanging informations using e-mail, bulletin board, so as on. These information contain game playing, game contents so as on. And community in online game is implemented as team, item exchange, chatting etc. Importance of community in online game and community in related online game have been increased. But online game community is not distinguished, comparing with importance of it. So, in this paper, we study on the case analysis of cyworld's community that developed characteristic community. Cyworld community is suitable for new generation and korean life style, method of adaption online game. This paper should be profitable for community in re lated online game, community company to planning, developing a characteristic community.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.24-38
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• 2018

Since a social networking service (SNS) isconsidered as an effective means to communicate and interact with customers, companies are trying to utilize SNS effectively. There is a lack of theory relating to the attributes of SNS. This study aims to investigate the attributes of SNS to classify SNS. Based on the social network theory, and previous studies on internet, blog, homepage, communication attributes, this study proposes the seven attributes to classify SNS: interaction, communication, entertainment, information, sharing, intimacy and connection. A pre-test, a pilot test and a main test are conducted. In the main test, 239 SNS users are participated. Through a factor analysis this study verifies the seven attributes of SNS. An analysis of variance with multiple comparisons of $Scheff{\acute{e}}$ method identifies that three attributes, interaction, communication and connection, are found to play significant roles to differentiate SNS. Looking at the overall mean values of the SNS by attribute, interaction, sharing, entertainment, intimacy and communication were relatively high in Facebook. Facebook showed higher values in attributes of interaction, sharing, entertainment, intimacy and communication. Twitter shows the relatively high scores for information and connection. Regarding interaction, Facebook shows higher scores than Twitter and Cyworld. For connection, Cyworld showed a significantly lower score than Twitter and Facebook. Cyworld was separated from the others in the light of communication. Cyworld is relatively weak in communication as it is limited to the message exchanges. The results will help in identifying major attributes for each SNS and classifying SNS.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.161-179
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• 2009

Nowadays an increasing number of Internet users are running individual websites as Blog or Cyworld. As this type of personal media has a great influence on communication among people, business comes to care about Network Effect, Network Software, and Social Network. For instance, Cyworld created the web service called 'Minihompy' for individual web-logs, and acquired 2.4milion users in 2007. Although many people assumed that the popularity of Minihompy, or Blog would be a passing fad, Cyworld has improved its service, and expanded its Network with various contents. This kind of expansion reflects survival efforts from infinite competitions among ISPs (Internet Service Provider) with focus on enhancing usability to users. However, Cyworld's Network Effect is gradually diminished in these days. Both of low production cost of service vendors and the low searching/conversing costs of users combine to make ISPs hard to keep their market share sustainable. To overcome this lackluster trend, Cyworld has adopted new strategies and try to lock their users in their service. Various efforts to improve the continuance and expansion of Network effect remain unclear and uncertain. If we understand beforehand how a service would improve Network effect, and which service could bring more effect, ISPs can get substantial help in launching their new business strategy. Regardless many diverse ideas to increase their user's duration online ISPs cannot guarantee 'how the new service strategies will end up in profitability. Therefore, this research studies about Network effect of Cyworld's 'Minihompy' using System-Dynamics method which could analyze dynamic relation between users and ISPs. Furthermore, the research aims to predict changes of Network Effect based on the strategy of new service. 'Page View' and 'Duration Time' can be enhanced for the short tenn because they enhance the service functionality. However, these services cannot increase the Network in the long-run. Limitations of this research include that we predict the future merely based on the limited data. We also limit the independent variables over Network Effect only to the following two issues: Increasing the number of users and increasing the Service Functionality. Despite of some limitations, this study perhaps gives some insights to the policy makers or others facing the stiff competition in the network business.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.46-62
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• 2012

This research intends to find factors to analyze users, non-users, and the relation between how many sites people use and the users' tendencies, in regards of social network services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Cyworld. The major results are as follows: firstly, the user group seems to be composed of people who are younger, have higher self-efficacy, and use smartphones, compared to the non-user group. Secondly, a single-site user group has lower motivation of 'expert search and expression' and a lower degree of personal tendency of innovation (novelty seeking and self-efficacy), compared to multiple-site user group. Thirdly, foreign SNS user groups have a higher degree of personal tendency of innovation and motivation of 'experts search and expression' than the Cyworld user group. On the other hand, the Cyworld user group seems to be affected by reference group in their use, while they have high motivation of 'connection'. In conclusion, there were significant relationships between personality and multiple SNS uses. Also, Cyworld users tended to use it for maintaining established relationships.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2006.10d
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• pp.135-139
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• 2006

Today's social networking services have tens of millions of users, and are growing fast. Their sheer size poses a significant challenge in capturing and analyzing their topological characteristics. Snowball sampling is a popular method to crawl and sample network topologies, but requires a high sampling ratio for accurate estimation of certain metrics. In this work, we evaluate how close topological characteristics of snowball sampled networks are to the complete network. Instead of using a synthetically generated topology, we use the complete topology of Cyworld ilchon network. The goal of this work is to determine sampling ratios for accurate estimation of key topological characteristics, such as the degree distribution, the degree correlation, the assortativity, and the clustering coefficient.