Cyworld America shutting down on February 19th.

This morning a reader passed along an email he received regarding his Cyworld America account. While reading through the first draft of this post I realized a lot of people might not have the faintest idea what Cyworld is or why there's an American version. Basically it's an insanely popular Korean social networking site that launched foreign-language versions in 2006. It failed in Europe in 2008, and clearly wasn't able to compete with sites like Facebook and Myspace in the US. Anyway, the email:

We would like to thank you for using Cyworld America's service. Unfortunately, it has been decided to discontinue the service.

We sincerely apologize to you and the other members who used Cyworld America as we know that many of you greatly valued the service.

Cyworld will try its best to minimize your inconvenience.

To try to minimize any inconvenience, we have set up a simple procedure that will permit you to download the data that you have uploaded to Cyworld.

We are also offering refunds for any unused dotoris (acorns) that you have purchased. Data backup and refund requests can be processed at Cyworld America's webpage.

Please note that February 19, 2010 is the last day on which you can download your data or request a refund.


Once again, we would like to thank you for using Cyworld America's service.


Thank you.

Looks like they first sent emails around in November. The Cyworld America homepage has the following notice:

Cyworld To Shut Down Its US Service

Thank you to all members of Cyworld USA. Regretfully, Cyworld has decided to shut down its US service.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this will cause you.
Until the effective date of the closing, Members will be able to access their US Cyworld content, but will not be able to purchase any items or to use their acorns.

If you follow the claim procedure, you will receive a full refund for any acorns that you have purchased but which you have not used. Members will also have an opportunity to backup their content, such as their profile pictures, uploaded photos and the like.
The procedure for claiming refunds and backing up content will be posted on December 1, 2009.

Schedule for closing US Cyworld service

Effective immediately the Cyworld Shop service will no longer be available.
Club service and profile photo/data upload service will be unavailable after Nov 23, 2009.

From December 1, 2009 through February 19, 2010, Members will be able to request refunds for unused acorns that they purchased and also be able to back up their user data.
The specifics details regarding these procedures will be posted to the website on December 1, 2009.

As for a reason why Cyworld America might not have been popular, the reader wrote in an email

Did you even know they existed? Maybe that's why.

I vaguely remember hearing about an English-language Cyworld years ago, and I think I even created an account. Compared to Myspace and Facebook, the two big social networking sites in the United States in 2006 when it launched, I guess the big difference would be Cyworld would let you connect with Korean friends and Korean sites, admittedly not a big sale outside of Koreaphiles and Korean-Americans. But the email today tells me that Cyworld America didn't even let do that, as there was no link between the different versions, pretty much defeating the purpose.

If you can navigate Korean-language pages, or can find one of the numerous tutorials online, you can sign up with the Korean-language version with considerably less hassle than a few years ago, when foreigners had to send in a passport scan. But unless you're signing up to comment on friends' pages, or want to try out the hypercute interface because your girlfriend forces you to, you might be more satisfied or communicating with Koreans via Twitter or Facebook, or starting a blog through one of the bigger portals like Naver or Daum.