On May 14th, the Hangul Smart Domain Organization announced that Girls’ Generation took first place in a poll to decide which girl groups would receive a Hangul Smart Domain, coming on top of nine other popular K-Pop girl groups. Kara and Wonder Girls were in second and third place, respectively. As a result, these three girl groups will be the first girl groups in the country to receive a Hangul Smart Domain.
Fans from all over the world participated in the poll, which began on May 3rd. The poll closed at midnight on May 11th, after 23,274 people had voted. During the voting period, only one vote per day was allowed for each IP address.
Girls’ Generation won 48.22% of the votes, thus winning first place. Right behind them was Kara with 30.17%, and Wonder Girls took third with 11.09%. All together, these three groups had 89% of the votes, thus verifying their immense popularity. The rest of the girl groups and their results were 4Minute (3.82% of the votes), Secret(2.01%), T-ara (1.92%), SISTAR (0.84%), miss A (0.69%), 2NE1 (0.66%), and After School (0.53%).
However, fans could express their opinions in other ways besides simply voting. On the polling site, fans discussed who would receive the first Hangul Smart Domain. Instead of slander and arguments, many of the 2,600 comments were messages supporting the singers. This surprising development showed the fans’ mature sides. In addition, these messages were left not only by Korean fans but international fans as well, thus confirming the impact of “Hallyu”.
Now that the winners have been determined, Girls’ Generation, Kara, and Wonder Girls will receive Hangul Smart Domains with the web addresses of “http://소녀시대.홈”, “http://카라.홈”, and “http://원더걸스.홈”, respectively. The fan clubs of these groups will also be able to use these domains at “http://소녀시대.팬”, “http://카라.팬”, and “http://원더걸스.팬”. Each address will be connected to the groups’ homepages as well as their fanclub sites.
Next, Hangul Smart Domain will be conducting a boy idol group popularity poll for the same purpose. TVXQ, SHINee, Super Junior, Big Bang, Busker Busker, CNBlue, FT Island, and Beast are some of the expected candidates.
The girl group’s voting results and the upcoming boy group poll can be found on the Hangul Smart Domain homepage.
Source: asiatoday
Written by: Hansoshi
Translated by: jyhwang@soshified
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