Cyworld Vs. Facebook

Do you have your ID on Facebook? Facebook, the social network web site, is one of the most popular sites in the world. It has approximately three hundred million members from all around the world. However, if you are Korean, you probably have an ID on Cyworld, which is a Korean social network website. Moreover, more than half of Korean people have an ID on Cyworld, even if they don’t have an ID on Facebook. Basically, main concepts and functions of both sites are similar. For example, you can communicate with your friends, upload and show your pictures and movies, and publish messages on your wall. Also, they might help you broaden and deepen your social network by sharing thoughts, and expressing your interests. However, there are several factors that make Cyworld and Facebook different from each other, such as, connections with a portal site, main target, and design.

First, being connected with a portal site or not is one difference. In the case of Cyworld, it is connected with a large portal site, named Nate. Recently, Nate merged with Cyworld completely, and it provides a search service, e-mail service, and news content. Thus, people can search for information and manage their own home page on the same website. For this reason, people who are good at multitasking tend to prefer Cyworld. On the other hand, Facebook focuses on human networking and it does not have e-mail service or news content. Relatively simple contents and interface attract not only young people, but also adults, so Facebook has a huge range of users.

Second, the main target of each site is different. Cyworld is a domestic service, which means most of users are Korean. Therefore, the company can reflect hot issues in Korea to make items to decorate homepages. If Yu-Na Kim gets a gold medal in figure skating in the Winter Olympics, the company might make a lot of items related to her to sell to people. In addition, a lot of Korean movie stars and singers have this home page, and they show their private lives, and current feeling. Sometimes, news reporters observe the celebrities’ homepages, and they write articles from them. Thus, it is thought that Cyworld is completely customized to Korean. On the contrary, the target of Facebook is everyone all around the world. Therefore, we can make friends from other countries by sharing thoughts and information. Also, we can be a fan or a member of numerous clubs and pages about world famous people or characters, such as Family Guy, Paris Hilton, and Johnny Depp. We can meet other people from different countries in those pages. In addition, Facebook is an effective way to deepen human networks for international businessmen, and people who stay abroad. If people, especially young people, are in the United States, they will meet people who have various backgrounds, and they can be close friends by using Facebook. Even though they did not have a time to talk about their private lives in the meeting or in class, they can share their private lives on facebook by uploading pictures, writing a message, and responding to their pictures and messages. Therefore, it is said that Facebook is an essential tool to for people who have a connection with foreign people.

Finally, design is another difference between Cyworld and Facebook. For example, the size of Cyworld is smaller than Facebook because the size of Cyworld is 932 by 538 pixels, whereas Facebook is viewed in full screen. Also, on Cyworld, you can decorate your homepage by purchasing items, which includes homepage design, music, and fonts. Although the company provides a basic home page design to everyone, many people, especially young people or women, want to decorate their home pages more beautifully and more uniquely. For them, the expression of themselves is important in cyber space as well as in real life. In addition, people can resize and edit their pictures by using editing tools. Pictures can be put together and decorated by text and stickers, which makes people more engaged and interested. On the other hand, the design, provided by Facebook is simple. The main colors are blue, white, and black, and every home looks same. People cannot decorate their homepages by buying other designs. It seems to be more focused on the original functions of Facebook, for example, communication, uploading pictures, and writing a short message. People do not need to spend extra money to decorate their cyber house, and do not need to compete with friends in how they make their home page better. Also, the uploading speed of pictures on Facebook is faster than Cyworld, so people can upload a greater number of pictures, up to 200 at once, which is convenient.

Many people are eager to share their experiences and feelings with other people, and they stretch their communication to the social networking sites in cyber space. Both Cyworld and Facebook give us places to express ourselves, even though there are several differences in system, target, and design. As the IT technology grows so fast, their services will be developed more and there could be more fun sites in the future.