Naver Maps celebrates Dokdo Day, but not in English, plus Korean portal site Dokdo logo doodles and more

Today was October 25th, and you know what that means. It's National Chucky The Notorious Killer Doll Day! But it's also Dokdo Day (독도의날), the day we celebrate the indisputable fact that Dokdo is "our land" 우리땅. [I try not to use 우리 in regards to anything, 우리나라, 우리말, 우리은행... well maybe that one's OK. Feels too presumptuous for the rest.]

Naver Map campaign for Dokdo Day

To celebrate Dokdo Day, Naver Maps held a Dokdo campaign, encouraging users to save Dokdo to their saved locations.

If you zoom in on Naver Maps today, you get some special imagery highlighting the Koreanness of Dokdo:

Dokdo Day special imagery on Naver Map (mobile)

This effect can be seen on desktop too:

Dokdo Day special imagery on Naver Map (desktop)

Sadly however, the effect wasn't shown when using the English version of the app. You have to switch back to Korean language in order to see it.

An oversight maybe? Seems like this could have been a good opportunity to do some international campaigning. Otherwise they're pretty much preaching to the choir.

Dokdo search result in English (L) and Korean (R) on Naver Maps app

Portal site logo doodles

As usual, most of the portal sites changed their logos to honor Dokdo Day.

Naver logo doodle for Dokdo Day

Naver interactive search results for Dokdo Day

Daum logo doodle for Dokdo Day

Daum interactive search results page for Dokdo Day

Zum sidebar doodle for Dokdo Day

Chosun Ilbo logo doodle for Dokdo Day

Ilbe logo doodle for Dokdo Day with some slightly less savory teasing

Interestingly, although Nate usually includes fun logo doodles during holidays, this time they didn't. Yet if you manually search the holiday, the same interactive results page as Daum shows up, which I think gives a pretty clear demonstration of how Nate results are just drawn from Daum results now (seriously, try a comparison; they're identical).

Naver Map underwater imagery of Dokdo

Also today they highlighted the fact that you can get some beautiful underwater views of the pristine ocean around Dokdo right inside Naver Map's "street view" imagery. Actually Dokdo, including most of its hiking trails, are covered by their cameras. Take a good 30 minutes taking a virtual tour of the lonely isles.

Naver Map Street View imagery - Dokdo