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Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

techcrunch.com

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Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#701

Post by antirez »

fastest963 wrote: post #700
antirez wrote: post #682

If you have teenager offsprings like me (I've a 13 years old son) you can understand that better maybe. I heard the sentence "We don't need Facebook since there is Whatsapp" an endless number of times from him and his friends. From my point of view at first this didn't made a lot of sense, I considered Whatsapp a no-cost SMS replacement. The reality is that Groups are a killer feature: my son's school class has a gro…

Are the groups better than what you'd be able make/do on Google Hangouts?

"better" is programmer point of view. From the point of view of users, Whatsapp is simple, does not require an account, and just works. So people use it a lot regardless of the existence of Hangouts and what they can do :-)

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#703

Post by pjc50 »

billyjobob wrote: post #585

Maybe I'm not down with the kids, but I'm not understanding what any of these message apps offer over plain old fashioned email. It alerts me on my phone, it works on my computer, it sends to groups, everyone already has it, it sends photos, it stores a history of all my past communications in one place accessible from anywhere. It's not completely secure but at least you don't have to trust any foreign corporation (…

Email isn't "instant", and you either have to go with a large provider or fight the spam hydra yourself. I used to run my own mail server and stopped because it was just not worth it.

Whatsapp acquired a whole number of users who didn't have computers, didn't have email addresses, and wanted the simplest possible setup that worked.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#704

Post by zimpenfish »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #575
kashif wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also XMPP is non-performant and verbose - these things matter as far a protocols go.

More importantly, XMPP has problems delivering the text-message-like experience. It's more of a live-chat protocol. If you want to receive messages when you're offline, things rapidly become a mess.

They shouldn't, though, because pretty much every XMPP server I've seen has user-offline message storage for later delivery eg [1], [2], and the "best practices" have been documented for years, e.g. [3].

Unless you actually mean "receive messages [to your device] when you're offline" and how the hell would that work?

[1] https://prosody.im/doc/modules/mod_offline [2] http://www.process-one.net/docs/ejabberd/guide_en.html#htoc4... [3] http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0160.html

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#705

Post by zimpenfish »

majani wrote: post #604
scrabble wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first year free just ran out. They sent me a message that I get to continue for another year for free. It's hard to believe anyone pays for this.

I think they don't charge countries that don't support payment on app store

That can't be right since the UK App Store supports payments and WhatsApp have never asked me for any money (but I was a light user before I ditched it for LINE.)

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#706

Post by vladiliescu »

nwh wrote: post #60

400,000,000 active users [0] 16,000,000,000 USD ---- $40 per user That's an incredible cost. We can assume Facebook is paying for the userbase, the app itself and it's infrastructure would basically run itself. It's less appealing when you realise that there's probably a miniscule fraction of WhatsApp users that don't have a Facebook account. > WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can contin…

Facebook is trying to buy its perceived competition, i.e. the "next" Facebook before it can actually become The "next" Facebook.

Same thing as with Instagram.

The fact that they can spend so much money on this (and that their investors allow it) shows just how much they want to remain on top.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#707

Post by nashrafeeq »

zanny wrote: post #543
nullspace wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really "pop" technology. Surprisingly, it's not used much in the United States, but in India it's basically a replacement for text messaging. Everyone from a 13 year old child to my grand mom uses it to keep in touch with friends and family members across the globe. IMHO, they were able to get to such widespread everyday usage because they such awesome and reliable technology. Much better than what Google ha…

I'll shake my first and one day see people using open standards protocols rather than this morass of proprietary dribble. Until then, I'm marginally lonely on my xmpp clients, though the facebook integration really helps.

Whatsapp actually uses a modified XMPP server

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#709

Post by xbadxapple »

kylec wrote: post #62
NDizzle wrote: post #27

$16B for something I've never even heard of. I feel like I'm living under a pile of rocks.

I'd heard the name, but I've never used the app and don't know anybody that does. Though according to this article ( http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/20/whatsapp-dld/ ) they have hundreds of millions of active users, so clearly some people are.

Strange, where are you from?

I'm the same as you - heard the name, never used the app. In the recent 4-5 months though all of my friends migrated to WhatsApp. I'm from Eastern Europe and when I cruised around other countries from the region there were many people who used that too. Maybe has to do with the fact that some telecoms still charge insane prices for a piece of SMS when you deplete your free quota.

Re: Facebook Buying WhatsApp for $16B in Cash and Stock Plus $3B in RSUs

#710

Post by TheAlchemist »

downandout wrote: post #628
jonknee wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they were acquired for $19B. That's exactly a startup. They had a small amount of VC and the revenue to match, but sold for a king's ransom--the storybook version of a startup.

Value = the amount that someone will pay for something. $19B in this case.

That's not value, that's called 'price'
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