beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 23 Jan.

Large Korean corporations have been accused of stealing innovation from startups, and copying it, backed by massive marketing budgets and distribution channels. This has the short and long term potential to seriously damage the thriving tech ecosystem in Korea. Your opinions on this are welcome.

The Optimus G set a new sales record for LG, which sold more than 1M units in the three months after release, and the follow-up is set for release in April: Optimus G Pro

Time is running out to buy Early Bird booths and tickets for beLAUNCH. beLAUNCH is the flagship event from beSUCCESS, and Asia’s largest tech / entrepreneurship conference, by daily attendance. In 2013 we expect 100+ VCs, 350 Startups, 2,500+ ticket holders, 50 top speakers, and global media. Come join us!

비석세스 독자들을 대상으로 재밌는 설문조사를 실시한 적이 있다. 최근 주변 사람들의 입에서 ‘소셜스트레스’라는 말이나 ‘SNS피로도’와 같은 신조어들이 많이 언급되면서 가볍게 실제로 그러한지 조사한 뒤 결과를 공유하자는 의도였다.

A Japanese firm (or beautiful Tehrani woman) has released a mini portable keyboard for smartphones. Something entirely useless, to go along with your Smart Fork…

Toshiba is due to release screens as early as March 2013 that dramatically reduce power consumption to 30% of their current best model.

Breaking news from beLAUNCH this week is that ‘Designer CEO’, Bongjin Kim (Woowa Bros) will be joining our speaker line-up. This is a unique opportunity to hear one of the most influential Korean entrepreneurs the joys and struggles of being a startup CEO.

Olleh’s Smartphone Film Awards are back this year and this time they are accepting international entrants. There is nearly $50k up for grabs in prize money, plenty of high-tech gadgets to give away, and the possibility of an entry at the Beijing Film Awards for the winner!

Samsung and LG have regained 1st and 2nd place in the US phone market, with poor sales of the iPhone 5 responsible for the increased market share by the two Korean manufacturers.

LG and Samsung scuffle over alleged display patent infringements. The Korean government calls for a return to innovation, rather than court battles.

John S. Kim founded the 1st generation social gaming company ‘Paprika Lab’ in 2007. The company went on to create ‘Hero City’ which attracted more than 1.5 million MAUs on Facebook and became the fastest growing game on Facebook. Paprika Labs was acquired by Japanese gaming company GREE, Inc. in June 2012. John joins us at Korea’s biggest startup conference, beLAUNCH, in May 2013.

Another key Silicon Valley speaker at our event May 1-2, Coex, Seoul. Phil Libin is the CEO of Evernote, a platform that enables users to capture arrange and manage information from multiple sources. Prior to launching Evernote in 2008 he founded and served as president of CoreStreet.

Apple shares were at their lowest point in 12 months yesterday, as orders are cut and sales disappoint. iphone 5 on sale in Korea at 1/8 original recommended price.

The A-list. The star-studded lineup. The white list. The list of Korean people you should meet if you want to do business in Korea. [Investors] K Cube Ventures : CEO- Jimmy Rim. Successfully invested in 9 different startups. One of the hottest firms in the community. It kicked off in 2012, and are focusing on early-stage companies (inc. startups) in mobile and IT. Their investments range from KRW 0.1 billion to KRW…

Kakao’s effort to lessen the effect of these ‘spam’ invites should be welcomed by mobile game developers. Users’ experiences with games naturally lead to an understanding and ‘feel’ of the platform that provides it. If Kakao wants to expand further, they will need to optimize their user experience as much as they can.

In 2012 Korean headlines were dominated by Kakao news, but 2013 has started out strong for NHN Japan’s Line messenger. Can Kakao sustain growth in the face of Line’s much stronger global presence?

MySpace has had another makeover and is hoping that with celebrity co-owner Justin Timberlake it will emerge once more as a force to be reckoned with in Social Networking. But with a drop in active users from 130 million to a little over 10 million, is it too late?

Kakao, the South Korean IM giant sought to partner up with American corporations such as Google and Facebook to name a few as a way to reach US smartphone users. They also successfully raised 92 billion KRW from the Chinese internet gaming company, Tencent (72 million) and a Korean company, WeMade Entertainment (20 million). Kakao will also consider an initial public offering (IPO) starting this year.

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 14 Jan.