MySpace launched a Korean service Tuesday, aiming to penetrate the highly competitive market dominated by local players, officials said.

The service exclusively features "minilogs" tailored to local users, which allows them to make daily jottings, AFP reported.

In Korea, MySpace faces fierce competition from local players such as market leader Cyworld, which claims to have 18 million users and is known for running blog-style homepages, photo uploads, comments and other multimedia contents.

"We don't think MySpace will pose a great threat to our service, which is based on strong off-line group ties," said Cyworld spokeswoman Shin Hee-Jung to AFP.

"There is a positive factor. The Korean service of MySpace is expected to enlarge the domestic market," she added.

South Korea is one of the world's most digitised countries, with 70 percent of homes having high-speed Internet access. However, it has largely shunned popular overseas services, Yahoo News reported.

Google, which launched a Korean-language site in 2000, has been striving to boost its presence there.