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What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

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Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#21

Post by buro9 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #10
xoail wrote: post #3

Epic fail: "The messaging app has users in 250 countries".

Guys, he's actually right. There are 204 sovereign states (secondary source, can't find the primary [0]), plus a handful of countries that are disputed (Palestine, Kosovo, etc.) There just simply aren't 250 countries. 0: http://imgur.com/rNDj4 (At the time of posting, parent was below zero)

Wolfram thinks that Scotland isn't a country ( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=is+scotland+a+country ) even though it has all of the things required by the definition offered by Wolfram. Even the equivalent of a Foreign Secretary in the Cabinet for External Affairs.

If the definition Wolfram cared to use was "Passport issuing state recognised by other passport issuing states" then we might agree.

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#22

Post by ComputerGuru »

i386 wrote: post #18
ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, he's actually right. There are 204 sovereign states (secondary source, can't find the primary [0]), plus a handful of countries that are disputed (Palestine, Kosovo, etc.) There just simply aren't 250 countries. 0: http://imgur.com/rNDj4 (At the time of posting, parent was below zero)

Palestine is recognised by the UN as a state now.

Yes, I was actually following that quite closely. However, I don't believe UN recognition is the definition of sovereign state. A country that is permanently occupied is hardly sovereign, no? If they don't have control of their borders, are under blockade, can't police their own, don't have say over who enters and leaves their territory, don't have their own currency, and are being literally split into 3 disjoin, non-connecting pieces (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza) with no passages between any of the three under their control, is it a sovereign state?

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#23

Post by carlesfe »

rwmj wrote: post #20
DanBlake wrote: post #11

They are up to 10 billion msgs a day now. So incredibly crazy- More than 100k messages a second.

What's the benefit over email? I still don't get it.

Free SMS/MMS, on countries which don't have a flat message plan, like Spain

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#24

Post by jcfrei »

seems like a logical step for me. facebooks messenger is still lagging behind whatsapp in terms of features (ie. it lacks video and audio sharing) and most likely also in users. plus in the past year I've noticed quite a shift from communication on facebook to dedicated whatsapp groups. it's just a much more convenient way to share and chat with close friends and depending on the group you're in it can be kinda addictive. needless to say I would be very disappointed when whatsapp would become part of facebook (especially if it would be linked to my fb profile).

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#25

Post by analog »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #10
xoail wrote: post #3

Epic fail: "The messaging app has users in 250 countries".

Guys, he's actually right. There are 204 sovereign states (secondary source, can't find the primary [0]), plus a handful of countries that are disputed (Palestine, Kosovo, etc.) There just simply aren't 250 countries. 0: http://imgur.com/rNDj4 (At the time of posting, parent was below zero)

States != Countries

The UK is a single state, but comprised of at least three countries. England, Wales, Scotland. Northern Ireland would not count as a 'country' I guess, though Ireland itself obviously is.

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#26

Post by creativeone »

rwmj wrote: post #20
DanBlake wrote: post #11

They are up to 10 billion msgs a day now. So incredibly crazy- More than 100k messages a second.

What's the benefit over email? I still don't get it.

Whatsapp works faster for me than gmail on my android. I can insert images, audio, group chat, mute notifications per group, smilies, share my location, snap and send a photo. also, not everyone wants to mix their SMS and email.

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#27

Post by jrmg »

sami36 wrote: post #4

What BBM could & should have been if those geniuses at the helm RIMM had any foresight. Apple made an iTunes version for Windows, Microsoft made Office for Mac. if those two could work past their differences for the sake of serving their customers, anyone can. Early on, when iMessage was a pipe-dream &Gtalk a usability mess victim of Google's "everything must be web" orthodoxy, RIMM could have made a killing selling…

Do you thing that there would be enough of a revenue stream from cross-platform BBM that it could sustain RIM?

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#28

Post by angry-hacker »

carlesfe wrote: post #23
rwmj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the benefit over email? I still don't get it.

Free SMS/MMS, on countries which don't have a flat message plan, like Spain

Probably the reason ALL my Spanish friends have Whatsapp... it really is huge over there.

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#29

Post by qnk »

gghootch wrote: post #14

As a long time user who profited from their first free download promotion, I have been wondering how the hell whatsapp can remain profitable for many years to come. Moving to .99 cents/year sounds great, but expect a massive user exodus. Many users out there are stingy as hell. I have actually heard people argue that they don't want an iPhone because you have to pay for whatsapp... Let's hope that their dominance of…

Dominance does not guarantee users' loyalty. Whatsapp is huge in Euope, but LINE[1], the Japanese alternative is now having an impressive growth in Spanish speaking countries. Las time I heard, they had 75 million users.

This demonstrates that this market is not still settled down and can still be disrupted.

The main reasons people is switching to LINE are stickers (huge emoticons that you get for free and with extra paid packages) and they have a desktop client, along with the possibility to run on iPods and iPads, probably Whatsapp's most requested feature.

[1] http://line.naver.jp/

Re: What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What

#30

Post by zack12 »

Whatsapp is a little gem on a company which no one talk about. It's hard to get inside information about the company on the internet, and maybe that's the geniuses of co-founders. They don;t talk so much about the company and instead focus on building a quality product.

On a comparative note, the product is actually not so good(maybe because of the sacle they are operating on). They have problems with their backend, few of the front end apps are not so good eg blackberry but increasing number of users is an achievement which is the scary part for facebook. I am in Pakistan. This is a place where most people don't use credit cards on the internet, sms packages are dirt cheap like $1/month for unlimited texting, and we have no 3G internet(only EDGE) but still majority of the people use whatsapp. Almost everybody i know uses whatsapp and they have been using for more than a year. One you get hooked on whatsapp people are forced to pay.

Whatsapp has a lot of potential to challenge facebook to a certain extend. They introduced profile pictures a while back, and the 'last seen at' update is like a gold. Ramp up whatsapp with a few BBM like features, extensive photo sharing, and geo location features(anonymously chat with people near you) and they can be a worthwhile competitor.

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