The news aggregation service offered by South Korean internet and mobile portal Naver has caused traffic to the portal to drop, the Korea Herald reports. The news service was launched originally as "Newscast" on its front page. News outlets provided links to news items on their own sites for the service, but it quickly turned into a battle of sensational news items to attract clicks, which prompted complaints from users. In April this year, Naver overhauled the service and renamed it "Newsstand". The new service allows users to select their preferred media but no longer offers links to actual news items or headlines. Users are instead presented with media brand icons. Newsstand hurt Naver's broad online traffic and also affected news companies as they no longer received traffic from Newscast.
