OK, how is Whatsapp different to using SMS to communicate with friends? What am I missing?
Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
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Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#62The key take away from this article is not to build your app in J2ME but to recognize how big the world is outside of America. American focused startups face lots of competition in a relatively small market.
And Android has like 80 percent market share outside of US. So maybe it's time for developers here and elsewhere to forget about the "Macs/iPhones 'everywhere', therefore let's build for them first" Silicon Valley culture, and start developing for Android first?
With J2ME phones rapidly declining as they are being replaced by smartphones (even $50 Android smartphones going into this year), and the vast majority of those smartphones being Android (even Microsoft is considering replacing Nokia Asha's OS with Android, therefore killing another a huge chunk of the J2ME market), Android's platform is basically the "new J2ME". So to follow the author's own advice, you should build an Android app.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#63OK, how is Whatsapp different to using SMS to communicate with friends? What am I missing?
It's free to message people abroad.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#64OK, how is Whatsapp different to using SMS to communicate with friends? What am I missing?
It is broadly speaking lower cost, allows media sharing (photos/sound clips) and provides delivery receipts.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#65Is WhatsApp popular in the states? I'm Irish and living in Spain and in both countries it's incredibly popular. Most of my communication is channeled through it (I'd rather send a WhatsApp then call in most cases)
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#66Framed another way, it goes to demonstrate the ridiculous price paid for the company. How are the "other 3 billion people" without smartphones going to contribute to Facebook's bottom line? When they don't even have Facebook? That they don't even view ads? And that the cost of switching is practically close to zero, with many other competitive products like WeChat? It all seems to me that it's just to pad the "total…
>> How are the "other 3 billion people" without smartphones going to contribute to Facebook's bottom line?
By becoming rich, of course.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#67OK, how is Whatsapp different to using SMS to communicate with friends? What am I missing?
It's free. No length limit. You can send pics and vids. No international fees.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem with Firefox OS is that they don't add any value over what is already possible in modern mobile OS. All of them have a web browser of some sort.
It's not about what is possible todo, it's about replacing feature phones in developing markets. They can't effort "cheap" androids, neither iphones. And if they get the money for an "cheap" android they don't have money for the development equipment.
My old cheap feature phone had a good enough browser already.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#69This. This is the answer I have always looked for.
> "But, but, how is WhatsApp any different than iMessage / Facebook Messenger / Hangouts?"
I have made this exclamation multiple times, and my friends in India and Singapore and other parts of Asia just turned up their palms with a "I dunno, everyone uses it and told me to get it."
I refused to use it since I like to use as few messaging platforms as possible (just Google Hangouts right now since it has most of my contacts, voice and video) despite my friends pestering me.
J2ME is the most reasonable explanation. I see why it made Whatsapp itself popular. But still? Almost everyone I know who's using it actually uses it on an Android/iOS smart device. Who is this "everyone" of theirs using it on feature phones? I doubt their friends circle intersects that heavily with rural villagers living on $10/day.
And also, is this really a viable long-term play for Facebook? How does this contribute towards the rest of their product plays?
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#70J2ME is interesting. Each phone supported Java Specification Requests (JSRs) and you could look up which JSRs a phone supported. For example, JSR82 is some Bluetooth supporty thing. The real problem was that between different phones and JSRs, some implementations were really bad (I remember having a Nokia 6500slide with dodgy implementations) and varied between phone models. This was especially odd on Nokia phones co…
They aren't paying for a J2ME app and the requisite testing. They are paying for the results of the network effect made possible by it.
So, the $16bn is for a massive network of end-user testers? :-)