World Tour Day One - Seoul, South Korea

That's the thing about flying to the East - crossing the International Date Line makes it the greatest time warp possible. You leave home Saturday afternoon and arrive in Asia on Sunday night wondering where your weekend went.

There are nine of us on this two week adventure, and it is quite different in nature than the usual business trip. The idea of the world tour, which originated in our product marketing group, is to travel to three countries where we 1) meet out international colleagues 2) learn about our business in the country from myriad angles and 3) address a few key areas spanning multiple markets. I was lucky to have the responsibility of putting together the trip proposal, and I chose Korea, India, and Brazil (Singapore snuck in for a day at the last minute due to flight routing).

Korea is particularly compelling for a number of reasons, primarily because the Internet market is very unique and both broadband and 3G mobile adoption penetration rates are some of the highest in the world. Web content evolved rather differently in Korea than elsewhere, and cultural implications have created distinct user behaviors than in the most other places in the world. With 3G adoption here at 40+%, we’ll also see firsthand what we might be doing on the cell phone in the US a few years from now - for example, people here pay at the convenience store by waving their phones over a sensor.

We've done nothing yet but grab dinner at a Korean place in the mall downstairs, but here's a shot of the crew right before Jonathan started sweating profusely from the kimchi soup.