ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that a popular culture of Internet use had already emerged following the first public email service, H-mail, launched in 1987. H-mail was the first public email service in Korea provided in 1987 by the Data Communication Corporation of Korea (DACOM), in which the first community of online users was formed. H-mail was originally developed for office automation in 1984 and only used among DACOM employees. At the time, it was the first domestic value-added service connected to the DACOM-Net, mainly for its corporate customers. Subsequently, teenagers’ and college students’ spontaneous online communities based on their own bulletin board system (BBS)grew. Empal BBS was one of those early BBSs when it began to operate in May 1988. While Empal BBS was well organized by a relatively large number of members, other BBSs were small-scale ones operated by an individual or small group with only several dozen members.
