South Korea is a country that has the best and the fastest Internet system in the world. The developed Internet system provides a comfortable environment for families to enjoy playing games and surfing the Internet at home. People can do many things, which they could not do before, at home by using the Internet. Internet users do not need to go shopping to buy products but rather just click the mouse button at home. Indeed, in the latest election of the Korean president, the supporters in the Internet collected contributions for a candidate and he won the election. This shows us how powerful the Internet is in South Korea. We can derive the reason from three factors; they are Star Craft, the Internet cafés, and the hot-tempered Koreans.

   First, the game that called Star Craft caused the development of the Internet in South Korea. When the star craft was released in 1999, it was a revolution that improved the existing way of playing computer games. Star Craft had a variety of new game systems and among them, the most remarkable thing was Battle Net, which the gamers all over the world could contact and play the game together in the cyber space. Most people who had played Star Craft went wild with enthusiasm and became addicted to it. However, in the early stage of Star Craft, the existing Internet system became problem. Battle Net was suddenly disconnected or really slow, so that the gamers could not enjoy it. From this time, the Internet cafés showed up since they equipped with the cable system, which was the faster Internet system than regular modem. The appearance of the Internet cafés was the best solution for the gamers to play the star craft much faster and more enjoyable. Indeed, non-gamers even began going to the Internet cafés to use the fast-speed Internet.

    Second, the star craft was the most important medium that caused the Internet café to be born. However, the Internet café also became another medium to develop the Internet’s system. After the Internet café showed up, all people who wanted to use the fast Internet went to the Internet café even though they had computers in their home. At that time, communication companies recognized the possibility of growth of the Internet business and many other business fields, which were relative with the Internet and the computer such as IDSN, ADSL, and e-commercial etc, so that they started to develop the technology about the Internet. In this progress, many venture companies were established and the competition among those companies increased heavily and the competition became one of the factors that developed the Internet technology faster.

     Third, most Koreans do not like waiting even for a very short time when they try to do something. This is a trait of Koreans. Of course, it does not mean that Koreans do not have patience but only pursue fast improvement and development. 2 months after IDSN was invented and spread in all homes, ADSL, which is a much faster Internet cable system, was plugged in homes in Korea. Even though the Internet users had a faster Internet system than only a few months before, they were still not satisfied. So the Internet companies put spurs to develop the faster and more stable Internet technology in order to satisfy the demand of the users.

     Three factors above, Star Craft, the Internet cafés, and the traits of Korean, rapidly improved the Internet technology and IT (Information Technology) business of South Korea. Through this progress, Korea has attained fast and remarkable growth in the Internet business field.

August 2003