Facebook to buy WhatsApp For $16 Billion

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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I was old fashioned; the only time I used a phone was, hold on, I can't hardly remember using a phone when i was a lad :p

It is useful for the unfortunate minority who can only dream of owning Iphones :o

^(the occasional nightmare :p)
 
AtreuS said:
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?
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Worth is whatever somebody will pay for it and I don't really see how that is relevant.

Zuckerberg is not an idiot. Slamming the app full of ads will destroy it's userbase. You really think he's that daft?
 
Well he has spent a fortune on a fee app.... so you tell me?

What does he hope to gain from it? surely he has to generate a revenue stream from it or its just money down the toilet!

Facebook generates money from adverts, remember when they touted the possibility of a subscription and backed down on the idea when it became clear that people would leave en mass?

I really would love you to offer up some ideas as to why he has spent so much money on something they dont intend to change, use or alter in any way?

When i first read the news i assumed there was a typo.. a few million i could understand but BILLIONS of dollars?!?

BUt hats off to the creators who are at this moment ordering their custom built malibu mansions and fleets of cars and hookers :p
 
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AtreuS said:
Well he has spent a fortune on a fee app.... so you tell me?

What does he hope to gain from it?
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One major thing - to generate revenue. Either by selling people's information or selling information to the NSA/US Government. There may be small ads integrated at some point in the future. Or some other underhand way as yet unknown to us or that will never been known over the radar.

One thing's for certain, all people's conversations will now be recorded [if they haven't already been] and passed over to the authorities.
 
AtreuS said:
Well he has spent a fortune on a fee app.... so you tell me?

What does he hope to gain from it? surely he has to generate a revenue stream from it or its just money down the toilet!

Facebook generates money from adverts, remember when they touted the possibility of a subscription and backed down on the idea when it became clear that people would leave en mass?

I really would love you to offer up some ideas as to why he has spent so much money on something they dont intend to change, use or alter in any way?
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WhatsApp's not been free for a long time. 69p a year at present. Wouldn't be hard to up the price or maybe he doesn't need to. Or maybe he plans to consolidate his existing technologies with it somehow?

Or maybe he's eliminating some competition for FB Chat? Does it really matter?

He definitely wouldn't have spent that much without a plan(we hope).
 
Always been free for me? occasionally a thing pops up asking for payment but i just click on more free time and it goes away. :confused:

I know that a lot of people will ditch it quick smart of they do integrate it with FB chat, as whatsapp is used a lot for flirting and having affairs and so on, once you add FB you make the reason for it ( being secret and hidden ) being used no longer there so you have to use another app. People keep the FB chat open and free to view to their gf/bf/spouse to divert any suspicions.
 
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G|mp said:
I don't understand Whatsapp tbh, it does nothing that text messaging can't do :/
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Every single person, including myself, has said this before they use whatsapp. It does everything sms does, but 10x better. iMessage was apple's poor version of Whatsapp but with the major limiting part that its only avaliable to Apple users, which wipes out about 75% of the possible user base.

Whatsapp really is the best messaging app there is. Its well designed, quick, intuitive, with loads of features .... all for 69p a year (with the first year free). Its worth every penny.
 
AtreuS said:
Well he has spent a fortune on a fee app.... so you tell me?

What does he hope to gain from it? surely he has to generate a revenue stream from it or its just money down the toilet!
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Has he? You know the conditions, the type or even the conditions attached to the stock? Media outlet reports $12bn but that doesn't mean anything until we know exactly what kind of stock is being given.

What he hopes to gain, who knows. Data? An opportunity to get into telecommunications? Either way, he's a Harvard drop-out who became the second youngest self-made billionaire. He's not exactly stupid.
 
Gaygle said:
Every single person, including myself, has said this before they use whatsapp. It does everything sms does, but 10x better. iMessage was apple's poor version of Whatsapp but with the major limiting part that its only avaliable to Apple users, which wipes out about 75% of the possible user base.

Whatsapp really is the best messaging app there is. Its well designed, quick, intuitive, with loads of features .... all for 69p a year (with the first year free). Its worth every penny.
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Don't get me wrong, I've used it, once, twice maybe. I just don't see the real appeal for it when similar is built into every phone nowadays anyway.
 
platypus said:
Except it will change, won't it? Facebook will have xmillion more users to target with advertising.
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Absolutely. $19b is a hell of a lot of money and the largest amount FB have paid for anything. They clearly see immense potential here, both financially, for control of their user base, for advancement of FB and information capturing, and other areas beyond that. And things will certainly change, if not now, then in the near future.

Didn't they also just give them $3b? I'd love to know exactly what's going on behind the closed doors of FB.
 
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Theophany said:
Has he? You know the conditions, the type or even the conditions attached to the stock? Media outlet reports $12bn but that doesn't mean anything until we know exactly what kind of stock is being given.

What he hopes to gain, who knows. Data? An opportunity to get into telecommunications? Either way, he's a Harvard drop-out who became the second youngest self-made billionaire. He's not exactly stupid.
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Well yes i know, he has to have a plan to use it somehow... but you keep saying the App will not change in any way yet offer up no ideas on just why he would buy it if he has no plan to alter it in any way.

I still maintain that the reason whatsapp is so popular is because it was independant, could be kept secret and wasnt attached to anything else so no sneaky backing up of messages to somewhere else without you knowing only for them to come and bite you on the ass later when the partner finds them :p

People are very picky and i really do think that the numbers of people using it will drop dramatically over the coming months. Time will tell :p
 
Theophany said:
Jesus ****ing Christ, did half of you even read the link before speculating a load of utter rubbish?
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With facebook in control, if you really believe that won't change then you're a fool. It's like a political party claiming they won't raise taxes in the run up to an election.

There's no way that Zuckerberg isn't going to find a way to add more monetising to Whatapp. He needs to justify to the shareholders spending that amount and show that by spending that he's going to make more out of it.

69p at current market is $1.14 so IF it stays as is and IF every user pays 69p a year to use Whatapp. it would take around 37 years just to recoup the purchase price.
 
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Resident said:
With facebook in control, if you really believe that won't change then you're a fool. It's like a political party claiming they won't raise taxes in the run up to an election.

There's no way that Zuckerberg isn't going to find a way to add more monetising to Whatapp. He needs to justify to the shareholders spending that amount and show that by spending that he's going to make more out of it.

69p at current market is $1.14 so IF it stays as is and IF every user pays 69p a year to use Whatapp. it would take around 37 years just to recoup the purchase price.
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IMO the only way the price is justified is if they can use it to edge into telecoms. Using to grow FBs user base just won't cut it.

But then again, nothing in FBs business model makes much sense to me.
 
Resident said:
With facebook in control, if you really believe that won't change then you're a fool. It's like a political party claiming they won't raise taxes in the run up to an election.

There's no way that Zuckerberg isn't going to find a way to add more monetising to Whatapp. He needs to justify to the shareholders spending that amount and show that by spending that he's going to make more out of it.

69p at current market is $1.14 so IF it stays as is and IF every user pays 69p a year to use Whatapp. it would take around 37 years just to recoup the purchase price.
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They aren't buying the 'App'. That's just part of it, they're buying the connectivity of people. Who's talking to whom and how often, how does that trend against things happening in the world, possibly where a user is when they're chatting, what time of day it gets used most etc. All analytical stuff that can go to advertisers.

None of that requires a change to the service provided.
 
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