The Rise of PowerBlog
A few years ago, even for a power blogger, building an internet site was quite an undertaking. You had to buy a high-performance computer, install a server operating system, configure the server software, and then manually build the homepage from scratch. The software settings were so finicky that it required professional expertise. If too many visitors showed up, the page would load slowly, so you even had to install a dedicated line just to make a decent homepage. Everything cost a fortune. As a result, running an internet homepage was something ordinary individuals simply could not do.
“It’s simple now.”
What had turned that situation completely upside down was the technological prowess of ID Technology. The cloud server system made it possible. In the past, the very concept of renting a server did not exist, but now it was commonplace. Rental companies advertising free hosting were springing up like mushrooms after rain, and with Wall Street speculative capital pouring in, both the capacity and speed of free hosting were growing explosively by the day.
Among those companies, the one performing best was none other than ID Technology’s cloud service. Because it was directly connected to the North American Information Superhighway, it was unmatched in speed—the most critical factor for internet services. Capacity and availability were virtually unlimited. Of course, it was not free, so one had to contract according to one’s budget, but it allowed for far superior service compared to buying server computers and installing dedicated lines oneself.
“Hmm, would three gigabytes a day be enough?”
Yoo Jae-won, who had accessed the ID Cloud Service homepage, paused in thought while looking at the payment screen. Three gigabytes referred to the daily traffic capacity provided. Since the ID Cloud Service always delivered the best transmission speeds, pricing was determined by traffic volume.
Although Yoo Jae-won was the chairman of ID Group, he had not the slightest intention of using the company’s services for personal purposes. Using corporate assets for private matters was embezzlement—a serious crime. That was why, when he bought watches in Basel, Switzerland a few days earlier, he had meticulously separated the expenses for personal gifts and gifts for company employees. The watches for long-serving employees were paid with the corporate card, while those intended for acquaintances were paid with his personal card.
The blog site he was creating now was also something he planned to build personally first, then decide whether to incorporate it into ID Group or keep it as a personal site based on netizens’ reactions. Therefore, he was funding the entire beginning with his own money.
The price for three gigabytes of daily traffic was three thousand dollars per month—roughly 2.4 million won in Korean currency. By 21st-century standards, that capacity would be exhausted in an instant and felt quite expensive. But in 1994, this was not yet an era where high-resolution photos or videos and other multimedia data were widely used. Instead, sites adorned with flashy visuals were proliferating at an incredible pace.
Yoo Jae-won intended to deliver a visual shock with the blog he was building. Even so, no matter how many images he used, the absolute capacity would remain small because monitor resolutions themselves were low. He was confident he could create a visually explosive page without exceeding one megabyte by 1994 standards.
“Three gigabytes should handle around ten thousand daily visitors.”
If every visitor explored the entire site, ten thousand would be nowhere near enough, but at least half would likely leave after viewing only the first page, so it would be fine.
After finishing his calculations, Yoo Jae-won immediately selected three gigabytes of daily traffic and paid for one month. If popularity exploded, he could simply upgrade to a higher plan.
Having secured his own space on the cloud server, Yoo Jae-won immediately focused on building the blog site. Perhaps because he was doing something he genuinely wanted to do, his fingers flew across the keyboard with speed and lightness. Android 95’s release was just around the corner, and he wondered if it was all right to be doing something else, but he had already completed everything he needed to do before departing for his European trip. The core features of Android 95 were finished. All that remained was fixing bugs and improving compatibility and performance.
The only major task that still required his involvement was selecting the company to handle the Secure Area. Testing the security software submitted by applicant companies was not his job. That was the responsibility of the development team, which would conduct various experiments in different environments. Yoo Jae-won only needed to review the reports they sent after verification and give final approval. Even that was not urgent. Mid-October, or at the latest early November, would suffice. Even with such a late decision, Korea’s packaging factory had sufficient production capacity to blanket retail stores worldwide just before Thanksgiving.
Time passed quickly. The murderous heat that had blazed through summer lost some of its force as September arrived. It was a tremendous relief. He had not called it murderous heat merely because it was a little hot—more people had died from the heatwave in August than in any previous year. Fortunately, Redmond, where Yoo Jae-won mainly stayed, was a town with little temperature variation, so he passed through the heatwave without noticing it. Thanks to his warnings, his parents, relatives, and friends living in Deokjin-ri had also gotten through it without incident.
During that time, several calls came in for Yoo Jae-won—from his former elementary school principal, his homeroom teacher, and the president of the Hyeonmiyu factory, among others. They all thanked him for the watches. Some said it was too much of a burden and tried to return them, but Yoo Jae-won convinced them that the gifts were modest compared to the respect he held for them. In truth, given the balance in his bank account, they truly were modest gifts. He only felt sorry that his busy schedule had prevented him from delivering them in person. Everyone understood his feelings and told him they would always wear the watches, which delighted him.
As a bonus, he received an unexpected piece of news from Park Sang-kwon, the former president of Hyeonmiyu and now president of Busan Group.
—Jae-won! I’m getting married.
It was the surprising news of Park Sang-kwon’s wedding.
“What? You’re getting married, President? Who are you marrying?”
—Someone you know.
Someone he knew? After thinking for a moment, one person came to mind. It was back when Yoo Jae-won had first tried to supply packages to TG. He had no vehicle to transport the finished package boxes his friends had helped complete. The person who lent him a truck was Park Sang-kwon. The driver of that truck was Kim Dae-seok, and that connection had continued until Kim Dae-seok eventually became Yoo Jae-won’s executive secretary.
Anyway, when he had stopped by the office to borrow the truck, there had been someone who treated him kindly—a woman called Miss Kim at the Hyeonmiyu factory. Her official title was accounting manager, but in a small company, she did everything. Everyone only called her Miss Kim, so he could not remember her real name, but he distinctly remembered her as a very spirited young woman. She did not have an accountant’s license, yet her practical experience had given her exceptional skill with numbers. Most vividly, he remembered her beauty, which was rare in the neighborhood.
“Was it the accounting manager called Miss Kim?”
After Yoo Jae-won’s question, a gasp came through the receiver a few seconds later.
—How did you know?
Park Sang-kwon was genuinely surprised. He had thought he had drawn a clear line and never shown any signs of dating. There had also been a period when their relationship had cooled slightly when he moved to Seoul because of Busan Group. Even if the two of them had written a roller-coaster romance novel, from Yoo Jae-won’s perspective as a third party, it had seemed like a natural connection. If anything, it felt a little late. At Park Sang-kwon’s age in Korea, most people already had children in elementary school. However, thanks to his connection with Yoo Jae-won, he had inherited the family business, Busan Group, which had kept him extremely busy, so the delay was understandable. Besides, by 21st-century standards, it was not an unusually late marriage.
“So when is the wedding?”
—Ah, October 8th.
Yoo Jae-won thought that once they had decided to marry, it would be better to do it quickly, but he understood that the couple might have their own circumstances. When he opened the calendar on his computer, he saw that it fell on a Saturday. Moreover, there were no other schedules around that date.
“That’s fortunate. I have no schedule, so I’ll definitely come to congratulate you.”
—The whole world knows how busy you are. It’s fine.
“No, I can’t miss such a happy occasion. Please make sure to send me an invitation.”
—Thank you for thinking that way.
After finishing the warm phone call, Yoo Jae-won immediately sent Kim Dae-seok a message via ID Talk instructing him to add Park Sang-kwon’s wedding on October 8th to the schedule.
The greatest reward since his regression was not only that ID Group was growing according to plan, but also being able to share the joys and sorrows of life with his acquaintances. The old Yoo Jae-won would not have cared even about his relatives’ weddings, let alone his acquaintances’, but this time was clearly different.
Yoo Jae-won then accessed the Korean Nextcom homepage and searched for Park Sang-kwon’s name. There was no mention of the wedding. It seemed he had contacted Yoo Jae-won first before issuing any press release. Instead, there were many articles about Busan Group’s recent activities. There were stories about venturing into heavy industry, Busan Construction building luxury apartments in Haeundae, Busan, and plans to build a large shopping center in Seoul while also eyeing duty-free shops. The beer story was also prominent—an article mentioned that the new draft beer, made by bringing in entire brewing facilities and technicians from Europe, was selling like hotcakes.
He had some concerns about their entry into heavy industry and construction. Heavy industry was a market where domestic companies competed fiercely even overseas, often resulting in bloodbaths, and while the construction boom was currently strong, it was a sector that would face difficulties once the 21st century arrived. However, because their consumer goods divisions were so solid, the company had accumulated substantial surplus funds. Since they were not relying on foreign currency like other companies, it was not yet a cause for serious concern.
“Huh? This is still causing an uproar?”
Yoo Jae-won had accessed the news site to check on President Park Sang-kwon’s recent activities, but when he glanced away for a moment, other articles caught his eye. It was an article he had seen while in Korea before—the Juche faction incident was still ongoing. In short, it was a battle over who would seize hegemony within the left-wing forces. It was a clash between the NL and PD factions, both of which boasted long histories within the left.
The incident had begun with the funeral delegation for Kim Il-sung. In the original history, there had been no official government delegation. But this time, thanks to Yoo Jae-won’s intervention, President Kim Young-sam and Chairman Kim Il-sung had held a North-South summit, which led to the formation of a delegation. Jeon Myeong-heon had led the delegation, and with Yoo Jae-won’s advice, prominent politicians from various parties had joined. However, the delegation was not limited to that—civic group figures had also been included, and that was where the problem arose.
Although Jeon Myeong-heon desperately wanted North-South economic cooperation, he could not bring along the Juche faction members who were steeped in Juche ideology. As a result, the pool of candidates narrowed, and somehow only PD faction members ended up going. The NL faction left behind in Korea felt deeply alienated. At the same time, a sense of crisis washed over them. They had been unable to attend the funeral of their ideological pillar, Kim Il-sung, which dealt a severe blow to their legitimacy.
Driven by this crisis, the NL faction caused an incident. They arbitrarily set up temporary memorial altars for Kim Il-sung inside famous universities in Seoul—not just one, but simultaneously at multiple universities. It did not stop there. They also made all sorts of hardline statements. They even went so far as to hurl insults at the PD faction members who had attended the funeral, calling them government lapdogs and accusing them of insufficient sincerity. Even in an era of North-South peace, such statements went too far. Moreover, Korea still had a generation that had lived through the Korean War, so this was something that could not be overlooked.
Eventually, President Kim took action. Even President Kim, who had been cautious while trying to assess what kind of person North Korea’s new dictator Kim Jong-il was, could no longer stand by. At a press conference, he declared that they would be strictly punished under the National Security Law, and the prosecution moved accordingly. University students were arrested by the police, and student councils blocked them, leading to violent clashes. In the midst of this chaos, the battle for hegemony within the left-wing forces burned even more intensely and complicatedly.
“Tsk tsk. They’re doing this because they’re well-fed and warm, aren’t they?”
Yoo Jae-won clicked his tongue as he closed the article. North-South relations might currently be dominated by ideological debates, but in the end, everything would come down to economic issues and be resolved through them. Once the IMF crisis hit and the harsh 21st century arrived, making everyone’s lives difficult, no one would care about such things—yet they were fighting to the death over it, which struck him as absurd.
Not only that, but the National Assembly and President Kim did not look favorably upon it either. In the United States, internet-related laws had already been enacted. In contrast, Korea had not even begun proper discussions yet. Even though he had given them advance notice earlier than the U.S., nothing had changed.
“Thinking about the future, maybe it’s better that they’re fighting like this now.”
Whichever of the two factions won, they would both be firmly disliked by the public. Politically, they were already as good as dead. Judging from the aftermath of this Juche faction incident, the biggest blow would be that it would become much harder for former activists to enter the National Assembly. This incident alone would set them back several more years. On the other hand, if people who would cause problems through such disastrous infighting were filtered out in advance, wouldn’t that brighten Korea’s future?
Of course, people had a tendency to forget. Koreans in particular boiled over quickly and cooled down just as fast. So the people causing trouble now would surely lie low for a few years before crawling back out. But he would never forget. He had carefully collected records of their current infighting and could put them to good use if they ever tried to enter politics again.
The same applied to the ruling party and government, which were merely throwing more firewood onto the already blazing Juche faction fire rather than responding to current issues.
“Oh no! What am I doing right now?”
When he checked the clock, more than twenty minutes had passed in an instant. It was an article that served no purpose, yet time had flown by.
“The end is near, so let’s focus!”
Yoo Jae-won steeled himself and closed the web browser filled with Korean news articles. It was in his nature to run even faster when the finish line was in sight, so he raised his concentration and began working without hesitation.
A few days later.
Large front-page advertisements appeared on both Korean and American Nextcom. They announced the launch of PowerBlog.com, the world’s first blog site offered as a service.