[Reporter’s Notebook] KakaoTalk’s Major Overhaul Leaves Only Internal Turmoil

Internal Criticism Persists Despite Restoration
Result of Insufficient Attention to User Feedback

The controversy over the major KakaoTalk overhaul has subsided, but the aftermath is still being felt both inside and outside Kakao. Just a week after the KakaoTalk update, Kakao made the unusual decision to restore the controversial "Friends Tab" to its original state. Criticism over the unilateral nature of the process emerged internally, leading to a situation where the product itself is shaking up the company.

The core of the internal criticism is that, despite being described as an unprecedented overhaul in 15 years, there was a lack of procedures to gather opinions. The update was unveiled unexpectedly at a conference and immediately implemented, missing the opportunity to properly gauge user reactions. In particular, among Kakao employees, there are strong calls to hold Chief Product Officer Hong Mintak, who led the overhaul, accountable for the situation.

On the day CPO Hong announced the decision to revert the Friends Tab, he told employees through an internal notice, "Minimizing user inconvenience is the priority," and added, "I will do my best to achieve this." However, he did not offer an apology to the staff, and criticism over this continues within the company. While it is fortunate that the company eventually took the unusual step of restoring the feature to minimize user inconvenience, there is lingering regret that the issue could have been avoided if sufficient communication had taken place both internally and externally from the early stages of the overhaul.

Kakao's goal with the Friends Tab update was to increase revenue. Kakao aimed to grow KakaoTalk into a social networking service (SNS) by highlighting user-uploaded images and short videos, similar to "Shorts," on the app's main screen. Recently, "Shorts"-quickly swiping through photos or videos-has become the trend in SNS to increase user engagement time. Kakao wanted KakaoTalk to play that role, as app engagement time translates directly into revenue.

From a mid- to long-term perspective, the company may have been right in believing that this overhaul could present new opportunities for KakaoTalk. If the app evolves beyond messaging to become a platform for sharing daily life as an SNS, its utility could expand even further.

It is clear that platforms must pursue profitability to ensure the sustainability of their services. However, for a service as influential as KakaoTalk-often called the "national messenger"-it was essential not only to consider profitability but also to carefully listen to user feedback. There should have been a soft-landing process, such as disclosing the direction of the update in advance, gathering opinions from regular users, or conducting beta tests. At the very least, if Kakao had thoroughly collected feedback and conducted tests internally, it could have implemented changes in a way that minimized user inconvenience. It is regrettable that KakaoTalk's experiment, which aimed for a major transformation, seems to have resulted in a loss for a small gain.