And so it has started. The end of the year is upon us and everyone is thinking about what’s ahead. Independent analyst firm CMS Watch has offered up their 2009 predictions. If the results of how they faired with last year’s round are any indication, we may all do well to pay attention.

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“Korea is the world’s sixth largest market in terms of internet users, and yet Google has a market share that can only be described as ‘minor’ in Korea,” co-founder Chang-Won Kim writes in his blog.

Portals such as Naver.com (the fifth most used search engine in the world, according to ComScore), Daum.net and Nate.com are much more popular in Korea, and according to the Korea Times, the move will allow Google to “spur development of user-oriented contents [sic] using the blogging tool, which will contribute to strengthening its search ability as well.”

TNC’s blogging software, TextCube, is an equivalent to WordPress in the U.S., and Kim boasts in his blog that TNC “services to 400K+ users, including 65 of Korea’s top 100 bloggers (as of 1H 2007).”

So if Google can sneak in through the bloggers’ back door, perhaps it can pick up some headway against the area’s dominant search portals.