They are also looking for new hires (software engineers) at their new European headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany (apparently they are located in the same building as their business partner T-Online). According to the Financial Times Germany, Cyworld gets around 600 million hits per day and generates approx. $90 million from virtual products which can be bought on Cyworld to improve the virtual surroundings of personal spaces (80%) and from ads (20%). This incredibly high hit rate is due to the huge popularity of Cyworld in S. Korea where practically all teens have a space, which accounts for 25% of the total S. Korean population! The site is run by S. Korean Telecom (SKT) which explains why T-Com in Germany has now partnered with Cyworld for the German market.
According to Cyworld, the plan is to launch the German site already this year, focusing on younger women mainly. This could be good timing for two reasons: first, interest in Web 2.0 is also rising in Germany, secondly the US competitor MySpace is only now coming to Europe so has no German version yet and therefore no lead. Assuming Cyworld will also change its currently way too colorful appearance to appeal to European tastes, I think the site could be successful. That they also attract 25% of the Germans is unlikely though. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how successful they can be here and if social networking becomes a huge trend in Europe as well, which subsequently would mean that community sites would have to be taken seriously by European marketers, too.