ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: In South Korea, the information super highway is making serious inroads among a cross section of the population, and it's about to add a few more on-ramps thanks in part to the South Korean government and a cyberspace giant. CNN Seoul bureau chief Sohn Jie-Ae explains.</s>SOHN JIE-AE, CNN SEOUL BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The message in this catchy government ad is pretty clear, Korea wants you to log on to the Internet. The road to Korea becoming a leader in the information age, it says, is through the Net. But nearly 10 million Koreans, about one out of four, are doing just that. "I don't think I have any friends who aren't on the Net," says this man. This woman says it's hard to think about life without the Internet. PC rooms, which attract everyone from youngsters playing Internet games to stock traders, are everywhere. In fact, about 40 percent of Korea's stocks are traded online. The popularity has made Korea one of the world's leading Internet markets, recognized by the like's of Internet granddaddy Yahoo!</s>JERRY YANG, YAHOO!: We will invest about $60 million into Yahoo! Korea. We will be making local strategic business investments into the Internet marketplace.</s>JIE-AE: Yahoo! is not the only investor taking advantage. The local technology stock exchange, Kosdaq, has increased in value more than 100-fold in the space of a year. Allowing technology-based companies like Locus, which develops Internet-related telecommunications services, to prosper.</s>KIM HYONG-SOON, LOCUS: It's a very good test market for all kinds of new high-technology service.</s>JIE-AE (on camera): Some say government ads may have helped the growth of the Internet population, but others say it's more due to a well-laid telephone system and the basic nature of Koreans to quickly adapt to new technology. But most are agreed that the Internet boom is here and is here to stay. Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
Internet Revolution Comes to South Korea