Tourists walk at Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



By Grace Lee



Kakao and NAVER offer maps in English, but the smaller rival beats the portal king in some elements of convenience.



Google Maps are out of contention as far as Korea is concerned.



The Kakao map has live updates of bus stops, buses that stop at a certain station and the estimated arrival time.



"NAVER looks prettier now, but Kakao just seems to work better in small details, like the bus times updating when you are already in directions," @hamhamsuke said on Reddit.



The NAVER map has elements of overkill. NAVER even tells you the size of the apartments in pyeong, a unit of space no longer in use.



NAVER also has an aerial view, similar to satellite photography, which is a Google-like feature although its usefulness is questionable.



"I stopped using NAVER maps because they show things that I didn't really need to know and I felt like that extra details were draining both my data and battery. Why would I need to know about the size of every apartment?" wondered Woo-jeong Shin, who had always used NAVER maps until she found Kakao map.



"I used to use Daum map that has changed to Kakao map. I favored it over NAVER because my tech-savvy friend told me it more user-friendly," said David Ko.



"So even after DAUM map was changed to Kakao map, I kept using it."



Foreigners are more likely to use applications that are easy to navigate. For example, although NAVER and Kakao maps have different categories such as "food," "subway," "bank," and "gas," they are harder to find on the NAVER map.



But, on Kakao map, it is the first thing one sees if he or she clicks the search button. To find the features on NAVER map, one has to click the "All" button to see the options.



More and more people are leaning toward Kakao map more than NAVER map. Some people say they use both.

"Sometimes one app won't show a certain store and the other will," said a comment on Reddit.



Grace Lee (grace.lee2@emory.edu) is an intern.

