Daum has brought back real-time search terms after 6 years, restored its four-color logo and fully revamped its home screen. With Upstage pushing to acquire Daum, attention is focused on whether the changes are simple service maintenance or a move aimed at something more.

◆A fallen portal ahead of an acquisition

On March 10, the industry said Daum's current share of the search market stands at 2.6 percent over the past month by InternetTrend and 1.56 percent last month by StatCounter. Daum ranks fourth, far behind Naver at 65.4 percent and Google at 27.8 percent, and also trailing Microsoft Bing at 3.53 percent. A portal that once ranked among the leaders has slipped to a 1 to 2 percent share.

Against that backdrop, Kakao and Upstage in January signed a memorandum of understanding for a share swap in which Kakao transfers its AXZ stake to Upstage and acquires a certain stake in Upstage. Upstage plans to combine its own large language model (LLM) Solar with Daum to build a next-generation AI search platform.

For an AI search platform to work properly, there is a prerequisite. Enough behavioral data must accumulate from users searching, reading news and leaving comments. If the user base is not raised before the acquisition is completed, the data foundation available after the acquisition could also be limited. That is why the industry is talking about a view that this overhaul is not unrelated to the acquisition timetable.

◆What real-time search is aiming for

AXZ on March 3 launched a beta service called Real-time Trends. It aggregates and analyses multiple data sources, including news, search terms and web documents, and updates rankings from No. 1 to No. 10 every 10 minutes. The service effectively revives real-time search terms that were scrapped in February 2020, integrating the existing Today Bubble and AI Issue Briefing technologies.

The strength of real-time search lies in its simplicity. Curiosity about what other people are searching for draws users to the portal, and users who come to check the rankings naturally move on to read related news, stay in communities and then return to the search bar. If that user flow comes back, time spent increases and leads to ad exposure, directly tied to portal profitability.

A second goal overlaps with that: accumulating data. How many users respond to which keywords, which news is consumed and what comments are posted all become training material for AI. In the same context, Google in 2024 signed a $60 million data deal with U.S. social news and discussion platform Reddit, and Naver revamped OpenTalk into a community format. No matter how sophisticated an AI model is, real-time reactions and context created by people are hard to replace with refined data. User behavioral data generated by real-time search can become a foundation for advancing Solar-based AI search.

Technology was used to supplement the public opinion distortion and abuse issues that previously led to the scrapping of real-time search terms. Repeated searches are counted only once, while concentrated searches by a small number and bot patterns are automatically excluded. From 60 days before local elections, person keywords linked to registered candidates are removed from the rankings, and operations are restricted during late-night hours from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.

AXZ also changed the logo. It reverted the Daum logo, which had been changed to a monochrome version, back to four colors. The move followed continued user responses that the monochrome switch felt unfamiliar. On the home screen it added widgets for sports broadcasts, community issues and the Ondaum game service, and also placed slots inside the home feed for top news, live and a stock market status. The structure lets users consume content on the home screen without searching, an attempt to turn the first screen itself into a stay-on hub.

The return of the original logo and the revival of real-time search at the same time leaves room for interpretation in terms of restoring brand familiarity and strengthening incentives to revisit. Improvements in service functions alone make it difficult to bring back users who have left right away. That is why the overhaul is read as also targeting a recovery of brand familiarity.

◆The key is whether the structure actually works

User-generated content (UGC) on Daum, including Brunch and Cafe, is an important asset in this strategy. With Naver dividing the search market with shopping and local-place, daily-life services, and Google focusing on information exploration, an area Daum can target is a combination of real-time responsiveness and human-written content. Reports that AXZ is internally preparing a personalised social-feed community service also aligns with this direction.

Daum's realistic path to regaining share is closer to a gradual approach than a head-on break-through in the search market. In a flow that goes from increased time spent on the home screen, to revisits to Real-time Trends, to expanded news and community consumption, to a recovery in search frequency, and then a shift to AI search, the first goal is not to quickly pull share up in one shot but to first stop the current decline.

An industry official said, "If this overhaul does not lead to an actual influx of users, it will be difficult to maintain its status as an independent portal."

Daum's picture is to draw users through real-time search, increase time spent through the home overhaul, then accumulate data through UGC and communities and connect it to Upstage's AI technology. The key is whether these separate changes lead to actual user inflows and repeat visits.