Instant Messenger Changes Ways of Communicating in South Korea

Male Internet users are logged on to instant messenger programs more than three hours per day on average, while females spend more time viewing blog and mini-homepages than men, a report said.

According to Internet research firm Korean Click, men use Internet messenger programs for three hours and 24 minutes on average everyday while women Users log on for two hours and 27 minutes. On the other hand, women Internet users spend just under 15 minutes everyday updating their mini-homepages and visiting others, about four minutes more than men do.

According to a report from the Ministry of Information and Communication, about half of Korea’s Internet population use instant messenger programs. NateOn, the most frequently used program, had 12 million actual users between June 2005 and May 2006. Microsoft’s MSN Messenger had seven million users in the same period.
Many large companies use private Internet messengers as well.
Samsung Group added an instant messaging function to their intranet system My Single in 2004. KT, the telecommunication giant, also has its own messenger program called KTiman. “I usually send instant messages when I have to talk to my boss, who is sitting right next to me,” said Yoo Byung-ho, 30-year-old employee at KT. “The company uses it when sending notices to employees as well. I think I’m logged on to messengers more than 12 hours per day during the week.”
Though the number of users peaked in 2004 and stopped increasing then, Internet messenger services are now widely used for a variety of purposes, not only conversations. Music downloads and shopping malls are attached to them, and even a real-time stock trading system was introduced last month. The MSN Messenger-stock trading system drew over 3,000 subscribers only a week after its launch, its operator Hyundai Securities said.

Meanwhile, use of e-mails was found to have decreased in South Korea since last year as people are shifting to use short messaging service on mobile phones.

Number of e-mails viewed at major mail companies in South Korea, such as Daum, Paran and Naver, has decreased by 13.7 percent in the last 18 months. On the contrary, the number of mobile phone messages sent by subscribers of SK Telecom, the largest mobile company, increased by 66 percent during the same period.

posted by Judy 
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/