SEOUL - South Korea’s tech giant Kakao has announced a swift and significant reversal of its highly controversial KakaoTalk update, just days after its rollout. Following an unprecedented flood of user complaints, the company is restoring the app's 'Friends' tab to its original, familiar list-based format, effectively acknowledging the failure of its attempt to transform the messenger into a social media-style feed. The change is slated for the fourth quarter of this year.
The update, unveiled on September 23rd, replaced the traditional friends list—a simple directory of contacts—with a grid-style feed that prominently displayed friends' latest posts and profile changes. Users immediately voiced strong discontent, arguing the new interface was fatiguing, intrusive, and fundamentally undermined KakaoTalk’s identity as a no-frills messenger. Social media and app store reviews were dominated by users demanding a rollback, with an influx of "1-star reviews" targeting the redesign overseen by Chief Product Officer Hong Min-taek.
In an effort to quell the escalating crisis—which saw the company's stock price dip—Kakao held emergency weekend meetings and ultimately decided to abandon the forced feed model. The original phonebook-style friends list will be restored as the default first screen. The polarizing feed content will not be eliminated entirely, however; it will be repurposed into an optional 'News' menu accessible within the Friends tab.
"We will continue to actively listen to and incorporate diverse feedback to ensure users can use KakaoTalk conveniently," a Kakao official stated, confirming ongoing UX and UI enhancements.
This immediate and substantial retreat—an extraordinary move for the dominant messaging platform—signals a decisive victory for the users and underscores the high sensitivity South Korean consumers have to changes in established, high-utility services like KakaoTalk. Furthermore, Kakao will also simplify the process for parents to activate protection measures against short-form content on the app’s 'Now Tab', another area of recent user concern regarding minors. The company now faces the task of regaining user trust and stabilizing its service in the wake of this costly misstep.
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