Facebook to buy WhatsApp For $16 Billion

Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.
WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.​
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Jesus ****ing Christ, did half of you even read the link before speculating a load of utter rubbish?
 
G|mp said:
I don't understand Whatsapp tbh, it does nothing that text messaging can't do :/
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Messages from wifi where there is no mobile signal; pictures sent to other mobiles free of carrier charge (except for data if not on wifi), voice messaging, all dependent on wifi or data from providers but useful to avoid carrier charges.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
Messages from wifi where there is no mobile signal; pictures sent to other mobiles free of carrier charge (except for data if not on wifi), voice messaging, all dependent on wifi or data from providers but useful to avoid carrier charges.
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Most of the people I message on a regular basis have iphones so it's all over imessage.

Voice messaging, that was called a phone call when I was a lad!
 
WhatsApp is vastly superior to iMessage from my experience.

WhatsApp doesn't do VOIP from what I've seen? You can just record audio and send as part of a message?
 
Goetz also calls out the 450M user number and the fact that it has spent exactly $0 on marketing and doesn’t even employ a PR person or marketer; its growth all coming from users.
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Wow!
 
bsoltan said:
WhatsApp is vastly superior to iMessage from my experience.

WhatsApp doesn't do VOIP from what I've seen? You can just record audio and send as part of a message?
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I've only ever tried viber.

no adverts in my experience.
free messages.
free voip.
can send images
woks on more devices than whatsapp does.

I just can't get my head around spending 16billion on whatsapp when you take into account what viber is being sold for and the userbases aren't so far apart that the price should be 16x more

315mil vs 450mil and the majority of whatsapp users are in china apparently
 
Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.
WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.​
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And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
​
 
arknor said:
but look at how much viber is being sold for and that has 300million users it's not even 1bn $ lol

whatsapp only has 150million more users but is selling for a ridiculous sum of money in comparison
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Keep in mind that 50% more users also means that it is more likely to become "the" messaging platform, while viber dies off. There aren't many situations where multiple social media platforms can coexist without one taking the lion's share of the users (eg FB)
 
it's not 50% more users though and for whatsapp being the first one it doesn't really have that great a lead on the other 2 that followed it.

usually the first ones aren't the ones that last in the internet world anyway.

someone at facebook must know what they are doing I guess or the data they can collect and match to facebook accounts is worth a lot more than we could imagine.

tbh if I were facebook I would gazump the viber offer seeing as the deal hasn't actually been closed yet and buy 765 million users for 17-18billion.
keep the apps separate but use the same server for both so they can communicate from viber > whatsapp > viber
 
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G|mp said:
Most of the people I message on a regular basis have iphones so it's all over imessage.

Voice messaging, that was called a phone call when I was a lad!
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But not everyone's friends all have iphone's.....

I find whatsapp great for keeping in contact with groups of friends.

You create a group and use it organise meet ups, have a bit of banter, send pics, videos to everyone etc.

I still use sms for sending individual messages the majority of the time, but for group messages whatsapp wins hands down.
 
Theophany said:
Jesus ****ing Christ, did half of you even read the link before speculating a load of utter rubbish?
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And you actually believe that facebook wont want to integrate it or use adverts at some point? That is the only reason they would have bought it surely?

I will keep using it as long as it stays the same... if they fiddle with it i will find something else. There is ALWAYS another app that comes along at times like this, when droves of people jump ship due to facebook or some other mindless company gets involved.

I personally have whatssapp... viber and LINE installed because not everyone uses the same one. LINE seems to be the one that is getting more and more popular, at least with my friends.
 
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Lysander said:


And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
​
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AtreuS said:
And you actually believe that facebook wont want to integrate it or use adverts at some point? That is the only reason they would have bought it surely?

I will keep using it as long as it stays the same... if they fiddle with it i will find something else. There is ALWAYS another app that comes along at times like this, when droves of people jump ship due to facebook or some other mindless company gets involved.
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I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were privy to information or evidence that refutes that?
 
Theophany said:
I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were privy to information or evidence that refutes that?
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Its simply that companies always lie about this sort of thing, why buy it if they dont intend to use it somehow? I mean its a free app with almost no revenue stream.. how is it worth billions of dollars?

Also the fact that almost everyone is saying "time to ditch whattsapp" on social media and so on... ( of my friends anyway ) facebook is like marmite, and a lot of people hate it. The mere fact its the new owner is enough for a lot of people to ditch it for another app.

Time will tell anyway!
 
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alx said:
But not everyone's friends all have iphone's.....

I find whatsapp great for keeping in contact with groups of friends.

You create a group and use it organise meet ups, have a bit of banter, send pics, videos to everyone etc.

I still use sms for sending individual messages the majority of the time, but for group messages whatsapp wins hands down.
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Great, I just said I didn't really understand it as a stand alone product.
 
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