Danny Crichton

lang: en

The New York Times today had an interesting story about "start-up salons" popping up in Tokyo. These salons are apparently acting as social lubricants to build a network of entrepreneurs in Japan.

Of course, there are still many issues in Japan (and much of the rest of the world) with fostering new ventures. As the article notes:

With its economy sluggish and its population graying, the country slipped to No. 25 in the most recent ranking of global innovation by the United Nations, falling out of the top 20 for the first time since the survey began in 2007.

...

More than ever, many innovations seem incremental or just plain odd. A $4,500 “networked” washing machine released by Panasonic in August that can be operated remotely via smartphone was greeted with derision in the Japanese blogosphere. “Has Panasonic lost its way?” one blogger asked.

I think that these sorts of "underground" communities are crucial in the early stages of a new start-up ecosystem. The connections that are formed will be crucial in the future, but even more importantly, they provide the moral support and camaraderie that will help the community face the tough challenges that will invariably come.

However, I think we need to be careful about being too excited about small changes. The article notes that a start-up incubator "[...] received close to 100 applications during its latest round this year." This is in the third largest economy in the world, with more than 100 million people.

Let's be clear here. Building networks is really important, but policy change is what is going to allow any start-up ecosystem to grow. Tax policy, business regulations, competition policy, immigration are just some of the areas that government has to

lang: en

I got this message yesterday on KakaoTalk and was interested:

Apparently, this is a social game that has gone quite viral in Korea in the past few weeks. The game utilizes the immensely popular KakaoTalk chatting application to encourage its players to send invites to their friends (quite reminiscent of the original Mafia Wars and other early games on Facebook).

KakaoTalk has recently been expanding into other areas, including games, in recent months as they have faced pressures from Apple's iMessages and other chatting applications. One of the advantages of the games model here is the unique leverage that the program has with users on their mobile devices. At least for Korean gamemakers, KakaoTalk is an excellent platform given its enormous market saturation.

As for the game itself, 애니팡 is something of a social cross with Bejeweled and other popular PopCap games that have been popular for some time here in the United States. There is definitely a distinct Korean feel to the game that makes it interesting if slightly derivative. (view a video of the game play here).

You can download the game from the Android and Apple app stores.

Update (10/3/2012)

A helpful reader sent along this event announcement. Apparently, there is going to be a tournament for the game held in Seoul soon.

Lotte Department Store - Main Store Young Plaza Grand Open

Find the Greatest Master Hand of AniPang!

For the first time ever in Korea, an event to find the Greatest Master of AniPang is to be held at Lotte Young Plaza.

Preliminaries: 10. 5(Fri.) ~ 10. 6(Sat.)
11:00 ~ 12:30 / 17:00 ~ 18:00
(25 people by order

lang: ko

씨넷 CNet은 최신 아이폰이 LTE를 지원할 것라는 루머가 있으며, 애플이 한국 핸드폰 통신사 SKT와 KT의 통신망에 아이폰을 제공하는 것에 대해 논의하기 위해 그들에게 접근했다고 밝혔다. 그러나, “4G”의 모호한 개념이 아이폰을 한국의 통신망에 제공하는 것을 더욱 어렵게 만들고 있다.

위맥스 WiMAX나 LTE와 같은 4G 기술들은 현재 전 세계에 배치되고 있는 핸드폰 통신망의 최신 기술에 해당한다. 엔가젯 EnGadget은 최근 핸드폰 통신망의 역사를 되돌아보고 핸드폰 기술들에 붙은 많은 “G”들의 – 옮긴이: 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G의 G – 정의를 다룬 훌륭한 보고서를 발표했다. 기본적으로 국제전기통신연합 International Telecommunications Union은 4G가 일정한 대역폭을 의미한다고 정의 내렸고 (모바일 기기는 100Mbps) 현재 이 기준을 충족하는 “4G” 기술은 거의 없다. 여기에 혼란을 더하기 위해, 티 모바일 T-Mobile은 또한 그들의 HSPA+ 네트워크를 4G라고 부른다.

다시 한국의 텔레콤 회사들로 돌아와 보자. 아이폰이 (짐작컨대) LTE를 지원하긴 하겠지만, 씨넷은 아이폰을 각 나라의 핸드폰 주파수와 그들의 전파할당에 맞추는 것의 어려움을 지적한다.

두 통신사 모두 한국에서 아이폰을 판매하는 공인된 애플 파트너들이고, 둘 모두 새로운 아이폰이 그들의 LTE 네트워크를 이용하기를 원한다. 그러나 4G LTE를 지원하는 것은 3G를 지원하는 것보다 더 까다로운데, 이는 전 세계의 다양한 LTE 통신망이 그들만의 독특한 주파수를 사용하기 때문이다.

미국의 경우를 보면, 버라이존 Verizon은 700 메가헤르츠를 사용하는 반면 AT&T는 700MHz와 2.1GHz를 사용한다. SK와 KT 모두 다른 주파수를 사용한다. 그러므로 애플은 다양한 주파수를 지원하기 위해 다른 LTE 모뎀을 탑재해 서로 다른 아이폰들을 만들어야 하는 부담을 안게 된다. 애플이 한국 소비자들에게 판매되는 최신 아이패드에 LTE를 지원하지 않는 이유가 바로 이것이다.

한국은 전 세계에서 LTE 사용자가 상당히 많은 몇 안 되는 나라 중 하나이다. 코리아 타임즈의 보고에 따르면, 한국은 현재 840만 명의 LTE 사용자를 가지고 있고, 이는 거의 버라이존의 LTE 사용자 수와 비슷한 수이다. 이는 정말 인상적인 사실이고, 한국이 확실히 모바일 기술 최첨단에 서 있기를 선호한다는 것을 상기시켜준다. 정말로, 이는 우리가 빠른 속도의 4G 핸드폰 기술에 있어 한국 인구의 대략 20%에 근접하고 있다는 걸 의미하며, 이는 한국 도시들 도처에

lang: en

CNet is reporting that the latest iPhone is rumored to have LTE capabilities, and that Apple has been reaching out to Korean cell phone carriers KT and SK Telecom about offering the phone on their networks. However, the nebulous concept of "4G" has made the work of offering the iPhone on Korean networks more difficult.

4G technologies like WiMAX and LTE represent the latest round of cell phone networks that are currently being deployed around the world. EnGadget recently had a nice report that goes over the history of cell phone networks and the many different definitions for the generations of cell phone technologies available. Basically, the International Telecommunications Union has defined 4G to mean a certain level of bandwidth (100Mbps for mobile devices) and few "4G" technologies currently meet those standards. To make it even more difficult to follow, T-Mobile calls its HSPA+ network 4G as well, adding to the confusion.

But back to Korea's telecom companies. While the iPhone will (presumably) support LTE, CNet notes the difficulty of aligning the frequencies of the phone with the individual countries and their spectrum allocations:

Both carriers are authorized Apple partners selling the iPhone in Korea, and both want the new phone to take advantage of their LTE networks. But supporting 4G LTE is trickier than supporting 3G because different LTE networks around the world use their own unique frequencies.

In the U.S., Verizon uses a 700-megahertz frequency, while AT&T uses both 700MHz and 2.1GHz. SK and KT both use different frequencies. So the burden rests on Apple to manufacture separate iPhones with different LTE modems to support the various frequencies. That's why Apple doesn't offer Korean consumers LTE as an option on its newest iPad.

The extremely popular Eat Your Kimchi website, which provides humorous and educational videos on Korean culture and is written by two Canadian former English teachers, has succeeded in their quest to fundraise for their new studio and business venture on IndieGoGo. The saga they went through, though, showcases many of the issues that new entrepreneurs face in the Korean policy environment.

The founders of Eat Your Kimchi posted a request for funds last week, asking for $40,000 to pay for a studio and potentially a video editor. This is to supplement more than $100,000 of their own savings in building up their business in the country. Their story brings up many of the hurdles facing new international entrepreneurs:

Anyhow, we had a bit of a problem that we’ve been trying to work out for the past year: we don’t have Visas in Korea, since we’re not teaching. Currently we’re here on tourist visa’s which are indeed totally legal, but we’ve spent all our time since quitting teaching looking into how we can work in Korea and get a stable visa. We tried getting Entertainment visas, since we’re kinda entertainers, but those visas couldn’t be got without a company to sponsor us. And there’s no company to hire us for a business visa either, be it government or private.

This is serious problem not just plaguing Korea, but the United States as well. Starting your own business means foregoing the support of an established organization to sponsor visas, greatly decreasing the ability of new immigrants in starting and building new business ventures. In the United States, a study I often cite has shown that roughly 25% of new technology firms were started by immigrant entrepreneurs.

Immigration is a sensitive topic

In preparing my research on Korea's entrepreneurial ecosystem these past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about what makes my home, Silicon Valley, so successful as a tech entrepreneurship hub. There are many unique qualities, from the way people and capital move, to the unique business culture that permeates companies here.

What I want to talk about, though, is the rapid way ideas travel in the region. One of the benefits of the Valley is the sheer number of people that do tech here. Engineers, start-up founders, financiers, and everyone in between are abundant. If you are riding in public transit in San Francisco these days, it is quite possible that you will overhear a tech conversation. Ditto in a bar, a restaurant, a Giants game. It's all consuming.

These same tech conversations happen at parties here all the time, and leads to the three most important words at the heart of Silicon Valley's success (and really, the success of any geographic industry cluster). I'll initiate a chat with someone, and we go back and forth about work or some common interest. Then, one of us inevitably introduces a new conversation thread with the words "have you heard."

Those three words are core to the way ideas travel throughout the region. In some of my conversations, I have gone through six or seven rounds of these sorts of conversation threads, each one introducing new information that I had not yet acquired from other, more general news sources like TechCrunch or VentureBeat. The accumulation of these stories and notes represents the heart of the "throbbing knowledge" that percolates among tech workers.

At times, I think that people in the region don't fully comprehend the magnitude and importance of these

Years ago, I wrote about a burgeoning proposal to encourage the Palo Alto city government to turn University Ave. into a pedestrian promenade - a road without cars where people can feel free to spill into the center of the street and walk around. The possibilities in terms of urban development are extensive: fountains, trattoria restaurants, community spaces, green space, additional shops and street vendors are just some of the options that open up without cars taking up the street.

Palo Alto has obviously been hesitant to investigate the promenade proposal, and not without good reason. Downtown Palo Alto these days is more of a business destination than it is a shopping or culinary district. That isn't to say that there aren't good restaurants in the city, or a lively performance scene, but the city has certainly kept its priorities for the area quite clear.

That discussion aside, I just visited Los Angeles last week, and stopped by Santa Monica to visit the beach. This city has truly focused on providing the very best in urban planning and design, and the results are magnificent. The city has redeveloped 3rd Street as a pedestrian promenade, and the result is every bit as positive as I and others envisioned three years ago for Palo Alto.

First, I want to point out some of the beautiful modern architecture located in this district. The area has several distinctive hotels and shopping areas that are certainly worth a look. The Shore Hotel, which is located right on the beach, provides a distinctively modern and industrial feel in its architectural style. Every hotel room also gets a full balcony for viewing the city or the beach depending on which side of the building the room lies on.

The New York Times and others are reporting on recent changes coming from North Korea:

Since July, various news reports in South Korea have quoted anonymous sources in the North as saying that Mr. Kim planned to give factories and collective farms incentives aimed at increasing productivity. The state would let farmers keep 30 percent of their yield, the reports said; until now, it is believed that they could sell only a surplus beyond a government-set quota, which was rarely met. Factories would choose what to produce and how to market their wares, splitting any profits with the state and paying their own workers.

It is difficult to make much of these sorts of changes (and despite a strong interest in North Korean economics, my reading of the tea leaves is about as random as anyone else's). When we look in a black box, we cannot expect to completely understand its levers, and North Korea is about as closed of a box as can possibly exist.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the North faces many disparate issues that are converging to make the leadership concerned. Economic sanctions, heavy flooding, low industrial output, the collapse of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, etc. are all putting renewed pressure on the regime. Perhaps the survival instinct will begin to inch the regime forward.