Korea is the first country to boast a professional online gaming industry and there are [infrequent] stories of gamers dying at PC rooms, having spent days in their seats without sleep, surviving on coffee and instant noodles. It is perhaps unsurprising that the government took action to address the national obsession with online gaming and in May 2011 introduced regulation banning under 16s from pc gaming after midnight. Yesterday, Korea voted in…

Charles Huang, Co-Founder of RedOctane, the organization behind blockbuster Guitar Hero, spoke at an intimate gathering of 60 startup entrepreneurs yesterday, as part of the SparkLabs incubation program. His success with Guitar hero ranks in the top five biggest gaming hits ever, yet his modesty was clearly apparent as he spoke honestly about three elements required for success as a startup. Firstly, startup entrepreneurs must have unrelenting passion for what they do…

JFDI.Asia  in Singapore has just announced that there are a few places still open on their next accelerator program, starting February 2013. But hurry, as applications close on December 24. This is a massive opportunity to get your startup off the ground, and running in one of the hottest locations in Aisa.  JFDI.Asia are also proud to announce that two of their most recent portfolio startups, tradegecko and Flocations both received funding in the…

beSUCCESS conducts analysis of Psy’s phenomenal year and takes a look behind the numbers to access other Korean exports (music, TV, tech, electronics, autos, etc) and draws conclusions about how and why it happened and what lies in store for 2013 for the peninsula.

Bom Kim established Coupang in August 2010 with only 7 staff and monthly turnover of 190 million won. Revenue is expected to be $600M this year. Bom Kim will tell us how he achieved this at beLAUNCH 2013.

The JOBS Act, signed by President Obama in April 2012 has legalized Equity Crowdfunding. The laws around the act are being finalized and then the flood gates will be opened to crowd-funded equity investment in startups. The world awaits!

Currently, Samsung Electronics is investing huge amounts of resources for the TIZEN expansion across the world. Already, the mobile OS ‘BADA’ platform is being synchronized to the TIZEN format, and considering the experience with BADA smartphones, selling around 20 million worldwide, it seems that Samsung’s decision will allow Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone series to be increasingly independent by decreasing the dependence on Google and others.

In early December, the major Korean telcos launched Joyn, a mobile messenger service which would allow subscribers to message, call and send files to other users. This could enhance the market entry cost greatly and make it difficult for small IT startups in Korea.

We are honored that Jessica Alba, alongside serial entrepreneur and co-founder of The Honest Company, Brian Lee, will be travelling to Seoul to speak at beLAUNCH, May 1st-2nd, 2013.

beSUCCESS caught up with Bernard Moon to learn more about the mentorship process at the Sparklabs accelerator. Bernard is Co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a web conferencing & sales solutions platform. Previously he has worked with the Lunsford Group, GoingOn Networks and iRG, a leading boutique investment bank in Asia, where he focused on TMT companies.

With ‘Gangnam Style’ ranked #1 search term across 5+ countries (you might be surprised to find your country name in there!), Korea continues to amaze the world. beSUCCESS investigates and analyzed the hottest trends in Korea, 2012.

First-come, first-serve! ‘beLAUNCH 2013’ will be providing FREE standard promotion videos for the first 10 startups who register for startup booths! Please note that the startups have to provide a script to introduce their services and provide $100 to pay for the voice-overs. Setting Up a booth at beLAUNCH 2013 is a great way to reach out to potential customers, partners, investors and media directly. beLAUNCH will be attended by entrepreneurs, startup…

Despite 54 million SMART TV sales in 2012 less than a third of consumers connect to the internet each week. blame has been levelled against manufacturers for not simplifying usage enough, and connectivity with preipherals (game consols, DVD players, etc) still drives non-TV specific engagement. Does LG have the answer?

With the year 2012 behind us, beSUCCESS analyses 4 hottest issues in Korea for the first week of 2013. Censorship in SNS services The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (yes, such a ministry does exist in Korea)  passed a new bill that protects youths from cyber bullying. They passed a bill that disables them from using swear words of slang on their KakaoTalk and other SNS services. Due to the demand that…

What are the key words for IT Korea 2013? What are some of the key words for the IT market in Korea for this year? According to Gartner, and The National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), the 10 key words for 2013 are: The beSUCCESS team thinks that mobile platform wars, enterprise app stores, cloud computing, and intellectual property rights are the main key words in 2013. beSUCCESS will be writing more…

Samsung sold its millionth Galaxy Note II in Korea just over 90 days after its launch, in September. This means that Galaxy Note II’s domestic and global sales now reached 5 million units. Let’s compare this with Galaxy Note 1. In its early phase sales, it took Samsung 10 months to reach 10 million sales. We expect that Galaxy Note II will achieve the same feat in 4-5 months given the current…

Apple’s iphone 5 fails to hit the target in arch rival Samsung’s home country, South Korea.

Several big names have exited Korea in the last few years (CarreFour, Walmart, Motorola, RIM, HTC, Goldman Sachs, to mention a few), but can Korean consumers be blamed for the failure of foreign companies to attract and retain market share, as some have suggested?

In November 2012, 55% of the companies that have not used a cloud service said that they plan to use it within 18 months. Desktop virtualization has been the number 1 interest of Korean companies for 2 consecutive years. Which tells us that there will be a definite expansion of cloud services within the Korean companies this year. Although the figures seem meek compared to 79% (Australian companies seem to be very enthusiastic), this could mean more potential for Korea, as we will be able to see that such virtual environments globally sued and acknowledged.

54Million Smart TVs were sold in 2012. but many consumers were non-fussed with the usability of many of the new features and globally only about 60% of internet ready TVs were ever connected (only 10% regularly connected in Europe). Can Samsung attract better usability reviews with its new products?