joopdorresteijn.com » Review

Learn to read and pronounce Korean Hangul in 2 days

Joop Dorresteijn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:19:15 +0000

You don’t need a black belt in Taekwondo to master the Korean language, actually… reading Hangul (Korean writing) is surprisingly easy! That’s the main point I am trying to make in this post. While the Korean characters seem complex at first, they are easy to read within one week. Skip the touristic English metro maps, [...]

EU Parlement in Brussels (pictures)

Joop Dorresteijn — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:47:56 +0000

Visited the European Parliament Espace Léopold in Brussels today; The complex is not the official seat of Parliament, which is the Immeuble Louise Weiss in Strasbourg, France, but as most of the other institutions of the European Union are in Brussels, Parliament built the Brussels complex in order to be closer to their activities. A majority [...]

Search engine Empas.com is ready for a comeback in Korea

Joop Dorresteijn — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:26:18 +0000

Empas.com is a South Korean web portal dating back as far as 1998. They became big with their cocky slogan: If Yahoo cant find it, Empas can. Empas ranks five out of five on our list of (most visited) Korean web companies, However, Empas has lost ground against competitors as Naver and Daum, it seems [...]

Daum: boring, but innovative in user generated content

Joop Dorresteijn — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:23:39 +0000

Daum communications is huge, they are the biggest operator of Korean websites and they also operate in China with 365ren.com, and in the U.S. with the acquired Lycos portal. The word Daum is Korean for next, but at first sight, they might come over as another boring web portal aiming for sensational celebrity news, or is it? Okay, Browsing to Daum.net feels like browsing through time at first. Dont be surprised to see a banner in the middle of the screen, offering you a Daum car insurance, or other income streams in in-house finance or shopping products. However, Daum.net scores (40 million active users) with UCG (user generated content) and sensational news.

Search engine Naver is best in localized results, example for others?

Joop Dorresteijn — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:03:42 +0000

We see increasing amounts of search engines popping up on the internet, they are using advanced algorithms to come up with better results. Not in Korea, at least not at Naver. Employees analyze, index and produces content for their search engine by hand. Even though this labor intensity, they count for 70% of the search [...]

Social community Cyworld a trendsetter in E-commerce?

Joop Dorresteijn — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:01:38 +0000

Cyworld is a social networking site, not big, and attempts to go abroad have failed in both Europe and Japan. Currently, they don’t even have an English interface. However, Cyworld got my attention because of their business model, and the generated revenue they receive from it. While the majority of the social communities get their income [...]

Moving from Imovie ‘06 to ‘08 was a surprise

Joop Dorresteijn — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:59:59 +0000

I have always been a fan of the quick and easy movie suite for mac called Imovie I had finally had the chance to play with the latest version ~Imovie ‘08 during the weekend. At first, Imovie 08 was a bit of a disappointment to me. I expected a program with a timeline (who’s idea [...]