What's What's app?

[jefmcg]

What I don't understand is that if one thing works why invent another that does exactly the same thing with no extra benefits.

Um, it's an open market place. And it's called competition.

There are 1.6M apps in the android store, and 1.5M in the IOS store. There's going to be a teeeeeensy bit of duplication. And all of the similar apps are updated to make them better than each other, and then they will copy each others new features if they can get away with it without infringing a patent.

 

[Hill Wimp]

I'm busy Snap-chatting @Hill Wimp

Except Hill Wimp uses Watsapp not snapchat.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

What's App is great, we use it as a 'beer chums call to arms'.

 

[potsy]

Except Hill Wimp uses Watsapp not snapchat.

Hill wimp talks in 3rd person speak, I have just deleted her from my whatsapp list

 

[Hill Wimp]

Hill wimp talks in 3rd person speak, I have just deleted her from my whatsapp list

 

[Jody]

1 Billion downloads. Say a third of them keep subscribed at 69p a year then that's £207million income a year. Not a bad little earner for few lines of code.

You don't need many people to use your service before you start making good money.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

My favourite features are that when I'm at home with poor phone signal, I can still use whatsapp via wifi.

There's also group messaging too, and I am a big fan of Web Whatsapp (for non-iPhone users) goto web.whatsapp.com on your phone, in settings go to WhatsApp Web. Scan the QR code on the site, now so long as the phone has internet. You can use whatsapp from your PC. Which is fantastic to be able to send text messages to people without using the phone.

At times I've been in work with my laptop, and left my phone at home by mistake, but still been able to use WhatsApp

 

[Inertia]

What I don't understand is that if one thing works why invent another that does exactly the same thing with no extra benefits.

The instant messaging market is huge and because there is no clear market leader everyone thinks they can become the leader, even Microsoft is thinking of getting back into it after ditching MSN messenger.

Facebook separated messaging from the facebook app for this reason. Whatsapp is one of the biggest as it was one of he first on mobile with Facebook being big purely because a lot of people are on facebook itself so they install it without thinking. Whatsapp is pretty clever because it uses your phone number to identify you and because of that it can populate your friends list quickly. Apple is hamstrung because only people with apple phones can imessage.

 

[Milkfloat]

1 Billion downloads. Say a third of them keep subscribed at 69p a year then that's £207million income a year. Not a bad little earner for few lines of code.

You don't need many people to use your service before you start making good money.

If you think the money is being made from selling the subscription (which very few people ever need to pay) then you are very mistaken. The real money is in the data it gathers from all the lovely messages flowing across the network.

Whatsapp was acquired for $19B - a long way off $300M a year revenues from subscriptions.

 

[ianrauk]

Whatsapp is my messenger of choice.
Very plain, simple and easy to use to use.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Whatsapp is a fantastic service that goes way beyond mere social convenience. Restaurants use it to tell waiting staff that the last portion of salmon has just been sold - tell your new customers. I used it in a large workshop to tell the mechanics and shop staff stuff that makes the business run better - two mechanics are off sick today, tell staff that we can book them tomorrow; a suspected shoplifter is prowling around; a XYZ product is on special offer, push it today; reminder of staff training early tomorrow morning, etc etc.

In my social circle I had a beer group, family group, cycling training ride group, etc etc.

 

[PhilDawson8270]

If you think the money is being made from selling the subscription (which very few people ever need to pay) then you are very mistaken. The real money is in the data it gathers from all the lovely messages flowing across the network.

Whatsapp was acquired for $19B - a long way off $300M a year revenues from subscriptions.

You'd hope that the messages across whatsapp weren't useful for data collection, as it is all encrypted.

 

[mustang1]

Think of it as free text/media messages. It uses your data plan rather than text/mms.

Not sure if someone's already picked up on this, but doesn't using your data plan imply its -not- free?

Edit: I take that back. You pry meant WiFi.

Edit 2: ugh, redownloaded WhatsApp again coz my social circle are complaining they can't send me stuff. Isn't there a virus out a few weeks ago that's screws around with WhatsApp and Hangouts?

 

[Inertia]

You'd hope that the messages across whatsapp weren't useful for data collection, as it is all encrypted.

Only if our mate Dave doesnt get his way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33737813

 

[Milkfloat]

You'd hope that the messages across whatsapp weren't useful for data collection, as it is all encrypted.

Actually the end to end encryption is in place only in Android to Android messages - plus we have no idea what is actually done on the WhatsApp part of the transaction. Messages are stored for 30 days for those users who are offline, so without doubt there is some storage going on.

Maybe worth a read of this.
https://pando.com/2014/02/21/the-problem-with-whatsapps-privacy-boasts-theyre-not-true/

Plus, consider that whatsapp is monitoring who and when you send messages to - it even has access and stores your full contact list, not just other whatsapp users, even worse these were stored 'unsalted'.

I am not saying that WhatsApp is doing anything wrong, many other companies are worse, including Facebook who incidentally own WhatsApp - but they are not whiter than white providing their service for our benefit.