New "Friends with Birthdays" Section Added
Posts from Friends Now Require Scrolling to View
Kakao has modified the KakaoTalk Friends tab so that posts are no longer displayed immediately upon launching the app.
According to Kakao and other sources on September 28, a new "Friends with Birthdays" section has been added to KakaoTalk, pushing posts further down the screen. Now, users must scroll to see these posts. Previously, users could change their settings to hide the "Friends with Birthdays" list, but this option is no longer available.
On September 23, Kakao announced a major overhaul of KakaoTalk for the first time in 15 years, removing the traditional friends list and making posts visible in a format similar to Instagram. However, users expressed dissatisfaction. They found it uncomfortable that posts from people they know through work, such as supervisors or business contacts, were immediately visible upon opening the Friends tab.
There are also various complaints about the KakaoTalk update beyond just the Friends tab. According to a user analysis conducted by UX group PXD using the Affinity Bubble tool, which analyzed 1,000 KakaoTalk reviews on the Play Store and App Store, most feedback indicated that the update had degraded the user experience. By topic, 42% of reviews expressed overall dissatisfaction with the update, making it the most common complaint. Additionally, 19% of reviews cited dissatisfaction with the user interface and design, and 10% mentioned issues with the friends list and profiles. There were also reviews demanding a rollback to the previous version (15%) or considering switching to another service (4%).
Hong Min-taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, is giving a presentation at the "if Kakao" conference held on the 23rd at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
The increased proportion of ads displayed on the screen after the update (6%) was another source of dissatisfaction. With the Friends tab now in a feed format, ads of the same size as friend profile updates are shown. This has led to speculation that, since Kakao has already secured advertising contracts, it may be difficult for the company to revert to the previous alphabetical Friends tab format.
A Kakao representative stated, "We are listening to user feedback and plan to improve features based on it." Kakao announced an update to version 25.8.0 on September 23, but as of September 28, the current version is 25.8.3.
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