KOREA: Internet portals trying to replace TV

New video search engines seek ways to put television broadcasts on the net

The Korea Times
Tuesday, October 25, 2005

By Cho Jin-seo

South Korea's Internet portal sites have engaged in an uphill battle with their new video search engines, which have the potential to grow into Web-based televisions.

Video searching enables users to easily spot and play visual files on the Internet and even some popular television programs such as sports and soap operas.

"We are currently talking with terrestrial and cable television broadcasters to air their programs on the Net," said Lee Sang-hoon, spokesperson of NHN, which operates South Korea's largest portal site naver.com. "We can't name the broadcasters at this moment, but we are seeking ways to broadcast programs that can draw the attention of the young generation, such as StarCraft video games, for example."

When it starts service in December, NHN's projected Web television service may be more powerful than traditional television broadcasting on account of its unique function called "scene searching service."

"You may not want to watch a full 90-minute football game if you just want to see how Park Ji-sung scores for Manchester United. Our site will provide only the highlight scenes in such games, making it more comfortable and time-saving for watchers."

While the two portal giants NHN and Daum Communications are both preparing to launch their video search services this winter, the rest of the top five portals already have theirs started.

So far, Yahoo Korea, the fourth largest Internet portal in South Korea, claims to have the largest archive of video clips with their "Yammy" search engine. "Yammy" shares more than 150,000 video files with Yahoo's worldwide sites, giving them an incomparable edge over their local competitors Dreamwiz and Empas.

Upgrading portals into next-generation televisions is not only the business of South Korea.

In the United States, Google has been approaching television content rights holders this year to become an online video content gateway, the same way they are dominating the Internet search market.

However, their moves were not very successful so far, as they met unfavorable responses from the rights holders in the country, indicating South Korean portals could face a similar problem in the future.

As well as the copyright issue, the video search engines could bring a hugely negative effect to society. Though service providers insist that they are making sure to block the access of adult materials to minors, loopholes are easily found in which obscene and violent files can be shared by young Internet users.

Since portal operators cannot check all of the millions of files uploaded every day on the Web, it is practically impossible for them to completely block children from viewing adult materials on their sites.

"The copyright issue is relatively more easy to solve than the censoring issue," NHN's Lee said. "That's what we are working on right now, and we expect to find some solutions for that by December."

Date Posted: 10/25/2005