KaKao

KakaoStory takes the mega-hit baton

 

In June 2011, when the number of KakaoTalk users approached 20 million, far beyond 10 million, some Krews shared their observations about user behaviors.

 

"Users seem to browse profile photos of their friends from time to time, just as they do on social media sites."

"Then shouldn't we do something for them to better commune with KakaoTalk Friends?"

 

It was the time when many global social media sites were quickly moving to secure the Korean user base. Steadily from 2010 has been raised the opinion that Kakao needed its own social media to react to market forces faster than global competitors, so Kakao began to quicken its pace. The 'Profile' TF was set up to design a solution catering to users' behaviors. Ryu took charge of the team. He had worked as a planner at several IT companies and then joined Kakao one month before the organization of the team.

 

 

 

# Fun with KakaoTalk Profile Photos

Kakao was a small venture with about 80 Krews when the TF was formed. Literally burgeoning was the company with no tangible business model that could generate profits consistently. Kakao went through a period of breathless expansion while managing to withstand unprecedented traffic growth, explore new business pipelines, and conduct a series of investment briefings.

 

As the summer passed, the team further refined the product concept. Unlike other photo-editor apps or nonacquaintance-based social media sites, Kakao decided to implement novel methods to help users share their lives with KakaoTalk friends. But Krews had to go through pros and cons during the process because opinions split sharply into those who insisted on implementing this Profile-based idea within KakaoTalk or who believed it should be serviced via an independent app. The two views were all convincing, but the company decided to launch a separate app to 'achieve user values in the fastest way.'

 

In the fall and winter of that year, algorithms and UI/UX were completed. The service name, 'KakaoStory,' was chosen after a fierce competition among candidates such as KakaoProfile, KakaoNow, and the like. And emotions that can be added to KakaoStory posts were five - Like/Cool/Happy/Sad/Cheer Up.

"One social networking service which was then well-received globally had only the 'Like' button. We didn't add 'Dislike,' the opposite feature that came to one's mind naturally because negative words might hurt users' feelings. Instead, we added 'Sad' and 'Cheer Up' to convey a sense of empathy. The reason why we subdivided positive emotion into three shades was to spread a pleasant warm vibe in the whole community," said Ryu.

 

#Into the storm

 Even though many people used smartphone cameras, the top Korean social media service of the time failed to draw user responses on mobile. And global social media was pretty much perceived as a bit tricky. That's why the TF members predicted 'some degree of success.' Daniel, the backend developer, known for his prudent personality, ordered servers whose capacity was sufficient for web traffic caused by millions of visitors before the service launch. It was quite a bold decision for a company that had continued deficit operation. Still, no one even alluded to anything about the budget because judgment by a person in charge was most respected at Kakao.

 

On the morning of March 20, 2012, KakaoStory took the first step in App Store. The number of subscribers exceeded 100,000 around 10 PM, and KakaoStory topped the list of Korean Social Networking Services even before it turned midnight. Every Krew was fretting while observing the situation. In fact, the prime mover behind this SNS crazy was disappointed with the thought that user reaction in the app market fell far short of expectations and went out to drink down regret with some Krews.

 

The storm started to blow hard from the next day. Around 10 PM on March 21, the service was ranked first among all the App Store apps, which eventually stirred the entire android app market. The number of subscribers per minute approached 2,000, surpassing 1,000 in a twinkling. Danie left a message on Agit, "It seems that we should do something to cope with server capacity sooner than we expected." Less than 40 minutes after that, he consecutively left messages, "We've blocked Comment Push for now due to insufficient push server capacity," "We've also blocked Friend Acceptance Push," and the like.

 

Both the number of subscribers and postings increased exponentially. So did the number of KakaoTalk subscribers due to the synergy effect. KakaoTalk's unique Social Graph and Invite features ignited a blaze of publicity. Engineers stayed up in the office to race the clock ― literally, save time to go to the toilet.

 

At that time, it was hard for them to secure cloud servers as quickly as today. Moreover, Thailand that accounted for a significant portion of the world's hard disk production greatly suffered from damagesdamages induced by the severe flooding of 2011.  

 

Dean, the then CFO, made a decision, saying, "It doesn't matter how much it costs, so let's secure a server." Kakao was willing to pay a premium for what they needed. Two and a half days passed after the launch of the service. Around noon on March 22, the number of KakaoStory subscribers exceeded 1 million, and 2 million after six hours from then. It was really on a roll. After nine and a half days, when Krews got swamped with work, the number reached 10 million.

 

KakaoStory was a social media service that hit the ceiling of 10 million in the shortest period, unprecedented not only in Korea but also in the world. (Note: It took 6 months for KakaoTalk to obtain 1 million subscribers and 13 months to secure 10 million.)  It made the service the second runner that received the 'mega-hit' baton after KakaoTalk. During the same period, a small messenger startup called KakaoTalk had grown to maintain 170 employees and got to be armed with a much more robust communication network. Scenes that users looked at profile pictures of their friends from time to time were observed everywhere.

 

#Charms, and Guts

"A small N badge next to profile picture, marked in red, whetted the curiosity of users. There was already a significant level of unmet needs for people desiring to decorate their profile photos better when KakaoTalk offered to set up a background for profiles to receive rave reviews from users. Simple and intuitive directions to invite friends to KakaoStory, by displaying the KakaoTalk Friends list played a major role," recalled Grace, then junior planner.

 

The very thing that enabled users to decide privacy levels for each content such as 'Friends Only' and 'Public,' grant permissions upon friend request and prevent any other privacy breaches sold well in the community. The popularity spread like wildfire ― as quickly as dry leaves caught fire easily.

 

KakaoTalk users had already exceeded the 40 million level, and KakaoStory began to run a growth trend. At that point, what stood out the most was the cost-bearing issue. The business model was still unclear. How did Kakao judge this situation? Ryu brought back memories of those days.

 

"No one ever felt pressured to deal with the situation. The management took a strong viewpoint that if a company offers user values on which people converge, a proper business model will develop spontaneously. Then the final due diligence was in progress to attract large-scale investmentslarge-scale investments  and investors were said to raise intensive questions about the network effect that could be obtained from such platform growth."

 

#Regrets

As the small company operated the large service, it revealed many shortcomings. Eight years have passed, and what points would the then officers regret now?

 

"It's a shame that we provided useful features late or limited favorite features due to premature concerns. KakaoStory was known for being popular among Moms, but, in fact, teenagers generated a significant amount of traffic. This group frequently repeated subscribing and unsubscribing while showing unexpected user behaviors such as changing nicknames from time to time. We were concerned about the possibility of 'abusing' and limited the number of attempts to change names. Likewise, we couldn't provide the Edit feature quickly due to concerns about damaging the original postings even though users requested for a long time. We should have listened more to users' voices, not just worrying too much." _ Grace

 

"We had to put a limit on the maximum number of friends one could invite due to system capacity, which contrasted starkly with well-resourced global services organizing feeds dynamically. We couldn't afford to try combining ranking algorithms or adding changes to feed organization. That's what I regret." _ Daniel

 

"From the outset of the service, we should have prioritized dynamics in human relationships such as getting close or growing apart in the process of time. If we did so, we could have enabled much better user experiences. I also regret that we missed the opportunity to take our service to the global level. It was the time when smartphone users were a frequent visitor to the app markets, so Kakao apps were easily exposed to the global app list whenever overseas Koreans installed them. They also generated a huge viral effect among their foreign friends. However, we couldn't help but launch the Korean version only due to insufficient resources. I still vividly remember some comments made by foreign users. "I installed this app because it's ranked No.1, but I can't use it because I don't understand a single word." _ Ryu

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Even though the activation index is lower than its heyday, KakaoStory prepares to take another leap on its unique strengths. The service boasts its solid fandom that values honest and comfortable communication with friends, unlike many other social media services only adding fatigue with the flood of news or information or mere ackamarackus. KakaoStory quickly cast behind domestic and global social media services that had enjoyed a stable position since the PC era. That is why the entire world is closely watching the steps taken by the only remaining domestic feed-type social networking service.