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Google Close to Acquiring WhatsApp for $1 Billion?
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WhatsApp is really huge in Europe. I'm from Germany and everyone who has a smartphone has WhatsApp. To be honest for most of my friends who bought a cheap Android Smartphone in the last half year, did it to get WhatsApp.
It was such a big news for me, but I was wondering not to read more about it on the web. But the reason could be that its not so big in the US.
It was such a big news for me, but I was wondering not to read more about it on the web. But the reason could be that its not so big in the US.
Step 1 is relatively easy. Step 2, not so much... think of all the infrastructure you would need if your app becomes popular... It cant' really just be a linux box in your basement...
Yup agreed. It's obvious not the technology... it's cross platform and serves 10 billion messages a day (by comparison to 2 billion on iMessages). So once they have access to your contacts, they have access to a good part of your social network as well (so now they just added millions of people to their G+ network strategy against FB as well).
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It isn't. Nice product, but the second you charge anything short of the most trivial amount of money, then users will flock to something else. But $1 per year rental seems fine. I bet a couple of million users will pay that instead of bothering to switch to something free. Google will read their texts and monetize them with placed ads as well.
And finally, most likely this is an acquisition using Google's stock, so let's say Google values $1 billion of its own stock at 10% of this value, then this might be a nice acquisition. Use the stock as much as possible while it is high. Like how AOL used its stock to acquire Time Warner, even though AOL itself as a business was nearly worthless at generating cash. Or how Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion Facebook stock, which has since lost value and probably will eventually drop significantly lower when it becomes clear that Facebook can't generate the billions of revenue necessary to justify their stock price from a product that people expect to be free.
This is all just funny money. The teck companies have to keep doing stuff so they can have another story to tell their shareholders that "next year the profits come". All while management waits for their shares to vest and hopes to get out before the whole thing falls apart.
The hard part isn't making them, but manage to be the most popular one and constantly being the top most bought app amongst million of apps.
I'd love to see numbers of how many users purchases WhatsApp every month, must be huge.
Signing up for Whatsapp is literally the easiest thing to do on a smart phone...theres no "account" it just links to your number and you can start texting away...
i think you people that are saying this isnt worth 1bn are looking too short sighted.
this is clearly a 1bn purchase to remove it from all other services other than android.
im not sure this would be a game changer at all....i wouldn't change my phone just because of whatsapp...someone else will come along, perhaps viber will step up a level..
this is clearly a 1bn purchase to remove it from all other services other than android.
im not sure this would be a game changer at all....i wouldn't change my phone just because of whatsapp...someone else will come along, perhaps viber will step up a level..
Using a proprietary method makes it much more difficult to exploit the network effect. What if in the early days of landline telephones, one could only call people who owned the same brand as you did? Would the tech have become as popular as quickly as it did?
Google is in the business of acquiring user data. This would be another, massive, source of that info.
It's a texting app. Who really cares who has access to the data? I don't know about you, but I mostly use it to text my in laws. I don't really care if anyone reads that.
It would be useful if you could install it on iPad / iPod Touch but according to the app info it is iPhone only (it refuses to install on my iPad) as the account info is all tied around your phone number... I have seen websites where people claim to have hacked it onto iPad / iPod Touch but I've never tried any of them and I think most involved a jailbreak.
I tend use a combination of Facebook Messenger, iMessage and Skype these days and haven't used whatsapp for quite a while.
One thing I do remember when I used to use it regularly is that it was a MASSIVE battery hog and could reduce my iPhone 4 battery life by pretty much 1/2 if I left it running in the background...
Yes, the motive is MUCH bigger than a simple message app. Its very difficult not to see around that.
Remove it from other handsets than Android? Not a chance. The second they do that, the second WhatsApp loses significant functionality because most WhatsApp users have at least one friend using an iPhone. Folks will drop WhatsApp if they can't use it to contact iOS users. Take US market with iOS is nearly 40% of all Smartphone usage. You can't drop that market from your service.
Try having a girlfriend, or family member or friend in another country and the benefits of this app are clear. Regardless of the phone type they have, they message you for free and it's painless as the contacts are the ones you added already. It's saved me tons in international SMS charges.