If you have been wondering what $WORK_PROJECT has been about for the last three years, there is a very entertaining and informative interview with Rick Kim of Cyworld on the Chris Pirillo Show. Cyworld are king of the hill concerning avatar sites.

They claim that 90% of all South Korean aged twenty-five to thirty (I am not sure if that applies to the whole or only the online population, but at that age segment in Korea the difference amounts to probably nothing) are using their service, which is a mini homepage system where people are representated by small digital characters called avatars. These mini homepages could very well be the Asian equivalent of the blog. While the service itself is free, people that want to differentiate themselves from others, have to buy virtual goods (such as clothing or furniture) to outfit their avatar. These items (mostly very simple graphics) are purchased with real money. And that is big business in Korea, with Japan and China next on the list. This is where GaiaX comes in. We (and others) have been busy copying Cyworld's business model and products and pushing it to clients in Japan.

The best part of the interview is how Chris Pirillo repeatedly and vehemently expresses his disbelief that people would actually pay for this kind of service. I feel the same way, and I really doubt that Cyworld can be a success in the West, where most people (including me) refuse to pay for much more basic services, such as email. Did I mention that we are now even rolling out items that expire after a month or two? On the other hand, ring tones seem to sell really well in Europe.

Speaking of Gaiax, they had their IPO this week, today is the first day of trading, the office is full of flowers (and a man-size Winnie The Pooh) sent by congratulators, and everyone is really excited about their stock options (which I suppose I forfeited by quitting a few weeks ago).