[Courtesy of Kakao]
Kakaotalk, a smartphone messenger app used by nearly 80 percent of South Korea's population, went out at the start of the New Year due to a traffic congestion, reflecting a new social trend of exchanging greetings in digital messages.
The company said its server failed to handle messages for 37 minutes from the break of 2017. Users were unable to connect and send messages with many experiencing forced logouts.
"We have upgraded servers in preparation for a sudden communication bottleneck, but problems occurred due to an unexpected glitch," Kakaotalk said in a statement.
In a smartphone-connected society, sending handwritten cards with New Year's greetings has become a practice falling behind the times as people share greetings on their smartphone messengers.
Due to a sudden increase in users, Kakaotalk reported a messenger server blackout for two hours in September last year when South Korea's southeastern province was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8. About 40 million people or 78 percent of South Korea's population use Kakaotalk, which was launched in 2010.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
