richnieh

The thing about popularity, one key issue is the freshness of the group. It is always the case for everything but especially in Kpop. Kara is already one of the long lasting group…obvious none comparable to SNSD in that department but better than just about everyone else. Other groups like Sistar, 4 minutes, 2ne1, Secret, f(x) are all younger than Kara in terms of experience. Secret had much shorter life but already losing popularity. 2ne1 and 4 minutes both has quite strong fan base but they don’t match Kara’s sales. F(x), Sistar had actually been around for some time but they are also so popular for about 1 and half year but the main reason of these group are simply that they are fresh. I can see 2ne1 and 4 minutes last longer than other groups as their fan base are more focused. The rest really rely on general market. Kara actually are one of the pioneer try to earn general fan base as they work hard on shows and concerts and repeat presenting themselves to public. It is a nice way to do it but their freshness will go down really quickly using this strategy. The best way for this kind of strategy to keep their fresh rating up is to explore new markets. If they really think their popularity is regressing, they should move out of Asia market. It will be very different from Wonder Girls: Wonder Girls moved into US market when they were the most popular in Korea and lost practically everything they built. Kara has nothing much to lose. Wonder Girls did not have someone like Psy to be the pioneer. In fact, GG and Wonder girls are the pioneer for the US market for Kara albeit they failed; Kara can learn from their mistakes. Kara has more experiences in opening a new market than those girl groups as they had more concert and modelling experiences than them with a weaker marketing company representing them. Kara is a much better group to work on their foundation as their route to popularity is much harder than just about every other group exist. I like their strategy to learn Japanese so they can go on interviews without too much help with interpreters. It is especially key to US or European market because being cute and dorky alone won’t really get you anywhere in the western market and it is quite important to say the right thing in the society here. The good thing is that Nicole and Seung Yeon can speak English quite well but English should be easier than Japanese anyway as we started learning English since we were kids anyway. Learning English is possibly the most important if they want to move into the US or European market because I feel being cool and sexy is much more important than being dorky and cute in their market.

Gyuri can try kissing everyone of her sisters in the group on stage in the dome. Not only Cole this time.

I bought the limited edition A. The DVD is great, loved the PV, especially Gyuri's. She is so hot in it. The rest of the PV are all fine. I love Guilty by SeungYeon, it is the best song of the 5. Her PV is good too, might be the most expensive one as well. A lot of broken stuff in the PV, LOL.

Rainbow is their junior. Kara is taking care of them. Congrats, Kara. The definition of a top group is based on everyone's opinion but Kara is the only top group in my heart. Go Kara, have a great 2012!!!

Newbie here, but I will follow the rules. They are great rules by the way, a lot of forums have no rules, it is just horrible.