Seoul, South Korea – Kakao, the South Korean tech giant, announced on Tuesday that it will be accepting applications from new media outlets to join its Daum portal. This marks the first time in over a year that the company has opened its platform to new content providers.

The move comes after the dissolution of the News Partnership Evaluation Committee in May of the previous year. The committee had previously been responsible for vetting news organizations seeking to partner with Kakao.

Kakao's content CIC outlined detailed criteria for the new application process. The evaluation will consist of two parts: a general evaluation and a quantitative evaluation. The general evaluation will assess whether the applicant is a member of at least one relevant media or journalist association. The quantitative evaluation will examine the ratio of original news articles to specialized articles within the applied category.

To promote diversity in news coverage, Kakao will be accepting applications on a category-by-category basis. The first category to open for applications is "regional news," with the application period running from November 11th to 24th. Successful applicants will be notified in the first quarter of the following year.

"Daum News is committed to connecting users with diverse and in-depth news content from a variety of sources," said Kwang-uk Im, media performance leader at Kakao. "We encourage all eligible media outlets to apply."

By opening its platform to new media outlets, Kakao aims to expand the range of news available on Daum and provide users with more choices.