Starbucks plans a double shot

[source]

Still short of their goal of having a franchise in every South Korean living room, Starbucks has announced plans to nearly double its presence in the Republic over the next five years. If all goes as planned, we will have 700 shops in South Korea by 2016, up from the current 370.

At the same time, they're planning to triple their presence in China. Just great. The last thing we need is Chinese Netizens who are angry and suffering from insomnia.

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Stop me if you've heard this one

It seems that Rain is the most influential person in the world. Again. Who saw that coming?

For entertainment value, read Time's description of this man whose far-reaching influence they don't actually seem to grasp:

This South Korean sensation has been making waves in his native country for years, but his catchy beats and hot dance moves have made his popularity soar internationally. Who can forget that dance-off with Stephen Colbert, or his parts in the movies Speed Racer and Ninja Assassin? His army of fans helped him stay on top of this poll last year; let's see if there's still enough love to keep him on top today.

There is nothing left to say I didn't already say... back in 2006.

Geez, man. Buy a shirt already.

And today it's Diamond Head

Ill have something on the Netizens' discovery of Blackout Korea [also here and here] sometime after I get down.

(HT to the loads of SoKos who triggered Sitemeter while linking to an earlier post on that).

He survived the vuvuzelas, but the Netizens did him in

The coach of ROK's national soccer team, Huh Jung-moo, has decided not to seek a second term, citing the malicious behavior of South Korean netizens.

From AFP:

"My family members suffered a lot … I want to have time to recharge myself and spend some time with my family," said Huh whose 30-month coaching contract expires with the end of the World Cup.

The Korea Football Association Chairman Cho Chung-Yun said earlier he had wanted Huh to remain in the job after he successfully guided South Korea through to the final 16 where they were eliminated by Uruguay.

It was South Korea's best performance at any World Cup finals held on foreign soil.

In the group stages South Korea beat Greece 2-0 but suffered a crushing 4-1 defeat to Argentina, which sparked a barrage of cyber attacks on the coach notably over his decision to shuffle his defenders by bringing on Oh Beom-Seok for Cha Du-Ri.

Cha performed well in the match with Greece but Oh made some decisive errors, contributing to Argentina's overwhelming victory.

He is the one in the public eye, but apparently it was his wife who was targeted and got tired of the abuse:

Huh's wife, Choi Mi-Na, told the Chosun Daily that she and their children had been deeply wounded by hurtful Internet postings.

"I told him he should quit … The coach and all my family members have been hurt enough," she said.

Been there, done that (on the receiving end). It's one thing when it's only directed at you (which is bad enough, especially when people are going after your safety, your job, or your public reputation), but when they aim for your spouse and kids or other family members, that's a completely different animal.

Why can't the get-a-life super comment tribe netizens do something more productive and less malicious, like focus on Paraguay's "Number-one fan," Larissa Riquelme.

On the anniversary of the Samil movement, the netizen wars begin

Apparently an army of some 10,000 South Korean netizen hackers have taken down 2CH, a Japanese forum that is not anti-Korean in and of itself, but in which many anti-Korean Japanese prefer to display their handiwork.

It was sparked, the Korea Times says, when some 2CH users began offering praise to Russians for the recent killing of a South Korean student (an incident you can read about at Brian's here and here):

The attacks were triggered by comments praising Russians for the killing of a Korean student in Moscow.

Some postings claimed that the killing was not racially motivated and Russians were doing "good deeds" after the event occurred.

2ch saw postings claiming that Kim Yu-na won the gold medal in the Vancouver Olympics thanks to judges bribed by Korea. Such anti-Yu-na comments increased when Japan's Mao Asada lost to Kim and had to settle for a silver medal.

If I'm right about which South Korean student was killed (and I pray there has been only one), then the murder occurred in Barnaul, near Siberian Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, thousands of miles from Moscow.

I have heard a great deal about the anti-Yuna hate fest that grew among some Japanese, but that in no way would justify anything like this. Indeed, even the hate-mongering and — dare I say — violence-inciting words from 2CH do not warrant this kind of illegal activity (hacking, that is). At the same time, though, I'd hate to see the ROK authorities go after the South Koreans responsible when those at 2CH who posted what may be illegal hate speech go unpunished. Maybe Lee and Hatoyama need to do a sit-down or at least a call-through on this one. [HT to Wangkon via email]

From the "Too Much Free Time on Their Hands" department

South Korean pop singer Rain (at left with "Star") was ranked the second most influential figure in the global entertainment industry, according to a poll by Time.

Rain followed director Ang Lee, winner of this year's Academy Award for Best Director for "Brokeback Mountain," who received 34 percent of public support.

The 23-year-old heartthrob often labeled as the Korean Justin Timberlake, garnered 28 percent of public support in an annual poll conducted by the weekly magazine. No word from Time on whether that equates to three rabid Netizens in a basement PC-bang or four.

UPDATE (4/29/2007):
Oh, dear G-d, it's happening again! Time Magazine has again put Mr. Rain on the list of candidates for their Top-100 issue, and fans of Rain have again voted (early and often?) to thrust him up to the dizzying upper echelons of popularity on that list.

As of today, April 29, 2007, Mr. Rain is at #2 with 385,467 votes, just behind Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert and his 235,147 votes (apparently Time's ballots are tallied in Florida).

Now, one might reasonably guess that nationalistic Korean fans may be behind this wild popularity among Time readers (especially if one reads nothing but the Marmot's Hole comment section), but if you take a look at Time's comments section, it would appear that most of Rain's superfan base is made up of people who are not in Korea (and I'm not referring just to Korean-Americans). They are names of people from places around Asia.

Okay, so he's popular across the continent. Still not sure that makes him influential, and one can still ask, "Is he worthy?"