Google Expands Non-Evil Empire to Korea

Every successful mega corporation knows that the first rule of acquisitions is: Why buy one of anything, when you can buy two for twice the price? Or, in Google's case, why own Blogger in the U.S., when you can also own Textcube in South Korea?

Textcube is a blogging engine geared toward Korean users. Imagine the market share that WordPress has in the U.S. and then think of Textcube as the Korean equivalent of WordPress.

The web publishing platform is the brainchild of Chang Kim and Chester Roh, the founders of the company behind the product -- Tatter and Company (TNC). TNC to Textcube is what Automattic to WordPress.

Why would Google be interested in a product like Textcube, when it has a perfectly good (or at least decent) blogging platform in Blogger?

The answer may not be as much about the technology, in comparison to the Postini acquisition, but more about the community around Textcube. Not only is Textcube a "cool blogging platform," according to Kim, but it is also the blogging platform of choice for the majority of Korea's A-list bloggers.

While most of us in the United States cannot imagine a day without Google, as evidenced by the recent outcry over GMail downtime, the search behemoth enjoys only a "minor market share" in the web-savvy nation of South Korea.

Whether or not the software platform is up to the level of sophistication usually associated with Google's stable of products is essentially immaterial. The real prizes are the eyeballs that might see an interesting Google Ad on a Textcube driven blog, an ad the user feels compelled to click on.

It remains to be seen whether Textcube will be leveraged or marginalized. Rather than speculate, CMSWire would like to congratulate the founders of TNC. As for our readers, we encourage you to read Kim's blog post on the acquisition. Quite patriotically, Kim's blog is hosted on Textcube.

What do you think about Google's latest grab? Will Textcube ever be heard from again? Share your opinion in the comments.

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