One of the most sensitive and highly contested issues facing Korea’s IT industry is the issue of datastream and the possible implementation of an aggregate management system. By definition, datastream is the tracing of data and usage from any IT device or service. Given Korea’s rapid development of an IT infrastructure it should be no surprise that a sudden overflow of data is causing an information overflow, a “data jam” so to speak. Cyworld (Korea’s most popular SNS), Portal, mobile phones, instant messenger, etc, all are contributing to a virtual traffic jam of the cyber-world. To counter this issue, a growing sector of the IT sector have advocated for an aggregate management system to streamline the flow of date from IT services and devices. However, others argue that such a system is both unnecessary and unfair to upstart companies who are unable to secure new websites.
OpenID is one particular kind of aggregate management system being advocated for by some companies, namely Openmaru Studio. Openmaru is the brain-child of NC Soft, which is Korea’s biggest online gaming company and made famous for MMORPG “Lineage”. However, I don’t think it will be popular because many Koreans are now slowing down the flow of datastream by using fewer methods and sites for their IT usage. There, the implementation of an aggregate management system is an unnecessary development in the IT world. In fact KoreanClick, the popular internet service company similar to Alexa, has stated that more and more Korean are connecting to fewer overall sites. While overall time spent on the internet is increasing, the decrease in site usage is reducing the datastream problem greatly.
While some of these upstart venture companies might be efficient and effective, it will be difficult for them to become popular in Korea. In the U.S., aggregate management systems are a necessary tool to control and log the immense flow of datastream. However, given the reduction in site usage in Korea, such a phenomenon is not vital our IT infrastructure. In addition, the consolidation and filtering of datastream through aggregate management sites negatively affects the ability of new website to spring up on the web.
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