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

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

#771

Post by aestra »

adventured wrote: post #455
rgovind wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't look at it as a messaging company. Look upon it as a communication company. Over the last 20 yrs, any company which has make communication with others easier has profited handsomely....eg Skype, mobile-phone operators.

That's not true. ICQ turned out to be practically worthless. MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Those ended up not generating any meaningful business what-so-ever. How do we know at this point that WhatsApp, Snapchat, et al. aren't going to end up in the same history bin? How about webmail? Is Yahoo's email service worth $20 billion dollars? Is Gmail worth $20 billion? Nope.

I think every communication protocol is destined to eventually be replaced by another communication protocol.

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

#772

Post by recursive »

chockablock wrote: post #464
recursive wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some reason people don't like sms?

per-message billing by telcos, high costs for international messages, no identity management (only tied to phone #), not cross-platform, character limits (MMS, the workaround, is historically janky), no delivery confirmation, lack of end-to-end encryption. Shall I go on? the only thing it has going for it (and it's a big one) is ubiquity.

I see. No one I text pays per message or is in a different country. I'm not sure what you mean by "cross-platform", since every phone you can buy supports it as far as I know. The character limit is a small issue. The delivery confirmation is a bigger issue to me. I don't care about end-to-end encryption when one of those ends is a major company that has ties to state-sponsored surveillance.

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

#773

Post by eevilspock »

gedrap wrote: post #505
huskyr wrote: post #132

Facebook suddenly acquired the world's (if we exclude the US and China) most popular messaging service. I communicate with this app with all my friends, and share stuff that i have no intention of ever putting on Facebook. Everything that once seemed 'private' is now in the hands of a website that forces it users to share as much as possible with marketeers and advertising companies. It's gonna be one tough mission f…

>>> It's gonna be one tough mission for FB to convince WhatsApp users they're not gonna be playing around with their data. It's much less relevant if you step outside the HN.

Really? Read the WhatsApp founder's blog: http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-...

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

#774

Post by 0d0d0fsd0 »

sentenza wrote: post #479
to3m wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish! I'm in the UK, and I've never even heard of WhatsApp.

Are you over 30? Seriously, I went to sit in with a few University freshmen recently here in Germany and they all used it. (They didn't know the Back to the Future movies, though!)

I'm from the UK, age 18 and never heard of WhatsApp outside of HN.

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

#775

Post by mathattack »

ggreenbe wrote: post #123
nwh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> triple the user base and it's still a lot WhatsApp current has 430M monthly active users[0], compared with FaceBook's 1.2B[1] monthly active users. Tripling their userbase would make them the same size FaceBook is itself. ED: Corrected as child comments pointed out. [0]: http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2013/12/400-million-stori... [1]: http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=821954

To be honest, why not? I can see WhatsApp having more active users than Facebook in the future considering their current growth %.

Seems reasonable since they do well on low tech phones. Facebook is limited by the amount of internet connections and smartphones.

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

#776

Post by seanalltogether »

malandrew wrote: post #67
carlozt03 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How'd you get your friends to move over to Telegram? I'm trying to get that ball moving with my circle of friends.

Better yet, how do we get people to move to something distributed so that Facebook (or Google or anyone else) cannot acquire the service. If we just move to another decentralized messaging service, that service will eventually get gobbled up as well, and we'll have to rinse and repeat.

I think the problem is that historically, we only ever collectively solved the email server. It's unfortunate that we didn't solve the more general case of communication through a server hub. We shouldn't have email addresses, we should have connection addresses, that provide access to mail, chat, audio, video, whatever.

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

#777

Post by to3m »

sentenza wrote: post #479
to3m wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish! I'm in the UK, and I've never even heard of WhatsApp.

Are you over 30? Seriously, I went to sit in with a few University freshmen recently here in Germany and they all used it. (They didn't know the Back to the Future movies, though!)

I am over 30, yes.

But I was talking to a former colleague who is EVEN OLDER THAN ME - over forty, in fact! - and he was saying he has used WhatsApp. Has been using it for a while, in fact. So, it looks like my age isn't to blame here - I am just hopelessly behind the times.

(He said he was going to stop though, now that Facebook have bought it. I pointed out that due to his age, Facebook probably won't care.)

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

#778

Post by mkaziz »

balladeer wrote: post #742
kamaal wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently staying in Bangalore. I had to join WhatsApp because most of relatives on Facebook moved on to WhatsApp and there are atleast like 6-7 groups on my WhatsApp. Friends, Office colleagues, cousins and other people. I'm rarely seeing FB updates from my friends these days. Most of it happens on WhatsApp channels. So its not a surprise FB bought them. Because if they don't they risk losing all users to WhatsA…

I live in Bangalore too! It's just that most of my friends are moving from WhatsApp to Viber and remaining will hopefully move now. I have around 10 groups running from school, boarding, college, jobs and some more. Fb buying them is a deal breaker. None of my "well read" friends are going to trust WhatsApp with those nude photos, short pornos or very very personal information we share. I don't know. Facebook just lo…

Facebook is probably going to get the history of all of the above. ;)

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

#779

Post by jmathai »

nousernamesleft wrote: post #439
jmathai wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opportunity cost is much larger if they miss out. It's the difference between ponying up tons of cash to stay relevant or fading into obscurity.

But it in no way ensures they stay relevant. It is literally just blindly flailing around buying anything that gets a lot of users out of fear and having no idea how to maintain their position.

It doesn't ensure they stay relevant but it's a better strategy than watching your target demographic leave your platform.

It's a $19B investment in trying to keep people on Facebook. $20B if paired with Instagram and $24B if they had acquired SnapChat.

The numbers sound crazy but they're trying to hold on to and grow a market cap that's currently $175B.

Zuck has some steel nuts but it's what got him to the $175B number in the first place.

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

#780

Post by nousernamesleft »

jmathai wrote: post #779
nousernamesleft wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it in no way ensures they stay relevant. It is literally just blindly flailing around buying anything that gets a lot of users out of fear and having no idea how to maintain their position.

It doesn't ensure they stay relevant but it's a better strategy than watching your target demographic leave your platform. It's a $19B investment in trying to keep people on Facebook. $20B if paired with Instagram and $24B if they had acquired SnapChat. The numbers sound crazy but they're trying to hold on to and grow a market cap that's currently $175B. Zuck has some steel nuts but it's what got him to the $175B num…

>It doesn't ensure they stay relevant but it's a better strategy than watching your target demographic leave your platform.

I don't see any evidence to support that claim. It is a different strategy, but I don't see any indication that it is better. Flushing a few billion dollars down the toilet is a different strategy too, but that doesn't make it better.

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