The nation’s leading mobile messenger provider Kakao plans to launch a news content service, the company confirmed on Friday.

“The company is planning to provide a service with diverse content that may include news,” the company official said. “However, as the service planning is still in a nascent stage, we are not in a position to disclose content details.”

Kakao said it has already formed a task force for the new project that has been meeting with media companies to gather ideas.

The service would come out as a type of content aggregation service that collects and shows information from news, blogs and social network services, an industry source said. The service is reportedly to be launched between March and June.

The company has been in talks with media outlets since last May and has done closed-beta tests since December, taking aim at the news service market, the source said.

(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)