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Facebook Buying Messaging App WhatsApp for $16 Billion

wikiverse said:
Outside of the US, some carriers include unlimited SMS (including international) in a reasonable monthly fee.
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Well there is two problem with this. 1) You are limited to mostly text, no multimedia pictures, video etc. 2) Just because it's free for you (or free a small fee) it's not the same case for everybody.
 
Facebook will need new companies considering their own is becoming more and more unpopular. i don't even have it on my phone anymore, check it once a week if that.
 
NOOOOOO !!!! I loved my independent WhatsApp.

just waiting for the "do u want to integrate your contacts" button

on the brightside ... maybe they will finally release a whatsapp edition for the mac

xero9 said:
Well, now I'm glad I abandoned WhatsApp in favor of BBM.

Out of curiosity, does anyone remember how much they paid for Instagram? I remember it being a ridiculous amount at the time, which I think was like 2 billion. This is just insane.
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its mostly an american thing i guess cuz it is very popular in the rest of the world. 137 of my 143 contacts have whatsapp while only have of those have an iPhone and another half doesnt use facebook (parents for example)
 
aajeevlin said:
What do you use? For international and cross platform messaging? Please don't say iMessage, because not everybody on this world as an iDevice. Don't get me wrong, I love iMessage, but only if Apple would open it up for cross platform, which I don't think they will.

On the other note, its funny because I just found out about this app called Telegram yesterday. Looks promising and they have desktop version as well. If the deal goes through it might be time to switch. I don't need Facebook to sniff through my messages...
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I use iMessage for one on one chats with most of my friends, SMS for one on one with the few people who lack iDevices, and Facebook for group chats. I see absolutely no need for anything else.

It's interesting that Facebook thinks this app is so valuable:
With only 450 M users, Facebook has just paid $35 / user.
 
Facebook is scared. They should know by now that their time is limited. I can't believe their stock will ever be higher than it is now.
 
MarioG said:
The number of $$ is absurd :eek::eek::eek::eek: pure madness.
I have no idea why on earth somebody would even use whats app, viber & company, when you have imessage, normal sms and fb chat-which is also cross platform and makes this aqusition even dumber :confused::confused:
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Dumb? Didn't you read about the 400 million whatsapp users?
I'm not saying this cannot go the wrong way for Facebook but the potential is tremendous.

Personally I am on the lookout for an alternative already. Line chat is nice too but I don't know too many people using it.
 
aajeevlin said:
What do you use? For international and cross platform messaging? Please don't say iMessage, because not everybody on this world as an iDevice. Don't get me wrong, I love iMessage, but only if Apple would open it up for cross platform, which I don't think they will.

On the other note, its funny because I just found out about this app called Telegram yesterday. Looks promising and they have desktop version as well. If the deal goes through it might be time to switch. I don't need Facebook to sniff through my messages...
Click to expand...

There's LINE.
 
Well give some company credit for going out there and taking a risk and putting forth a large chunk of money to purchase a big company, unlike some other companies *cough cough* (apple). Apple needs to step their game and purchase a big company like Twitter. I can even imagine what Twitter is valued at if whatsapp if 16 billion dollars.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I use iMessage for one on one chats with most of my friends, SMS for one on one with the few people who lack iDevices, and Facebook for group chats. I see absolutely no need for anything else.

It's interesting that Facebook thinks this app is so valuable:
With only 450 M users, Facebook has just paid $35 / user.
Click to expand...

If that's that way of getting around with the cross platform issues/international. But Whatsapp was out much longer before Facebook message. So a lot of people have long adopted whatsapp, and it works well so there isn't a point to switch.
 
Remember when we thought Instagram for $1 billion was too expensive?

Good times, good times...
 
The old problem with people having too much money.
I wasn't even buying WhatsApp when it was 99¢ and these idiots pay $16b. :eek:
 
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