Naver to launch short-form service on portal’s front page

South Korea’s top online portal Naver Corp. said on Wednesday it is strengthening its short-form content service on surging demand for video content that is less than a minute long.

When launched, it will be the first time for the Korean tech giant to provide a platform solely dedicated to short-form content.

Naver said the first screen of the portal’s app will show content like TikTok shorts and Instagram feeds.

The company said it will begin A/B testing on select users from Aug. 16 ahead of the release of its revamped app in the second half of the year.

The renovated app will have four tabs – Home, Content, Shopping and Clip – based on content type so that users can directly move to their desired service. The order of these trial tabs can vary among users.

The Home tab will feature daily weather and stock market information and will shortcut to frequently used services. The Shopping tab will allow the use of Naver Shopping functions from product searches to managing orders, along with shopping recommendations tailored to each user, it said.

New to the app will be the Clip tab, which recommends short videos personalized for users, and the Home Feed at the bottom of the Home tab.

This development is also seen as a growth opportunity for content creators to show their stuff to more users and a driver of higher-quality content production, according to Naver.

The Clip tab will feature user-customized content through Naver's artificial intelligence (AI)-based recommendation system ranging from that of fashion, beauty, travel, sports and food to live performances by users' favorite artists. Clip creators selected through fierce competition began activities earlier this month, leading to expectations of more content with differentiated quality.

The Home Feed uses Naver's own hyper-scale AI HyperCLOVA X to analyze user interests to match them with diverse content in line with such interests within the Naver ecosystem such as blogs, posts, Naver TV, influencers, premium content and online cafes.

Similar efforts to strengthen its short-form service in the past include the Naver Moment tool, which allows bloggers to edit short-form videos to upload directly onto the Naver Blog.

The tech company has also been uploading videos that are shorter than 10 minutes to its livestream shopping platform Naver Shopping Live.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.