
Facebook - CoachRufus87
http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2014/02/facebook/
======
GuiA
I ask, cause I'm not sure- do anybody make real companies anymore?

~~~
123412341234123
No.

Most companies are conceived with an explicit exit strategy in mind from day
one, and that strategy is usually:

    
    
      SELL OUT TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, AND
      RETIRE EARLY, WHILE SOME OF US ARE STILL YOUNG ENOUGH TO 
      ENJOY LIFE.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
You might have a point if they hadn't previously turned down a $1billion bid
from Google.

~~~
aroch
How does a rejection of a significantly smaller offer disprove the point?

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thirsteh
$1B isn't a small offer, though.

~~~
ekianjo
It just means they were hungry. 1B is a relatively small offer in the world of
IT IPOs nowadays.

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d99kris
Relevant article _Why Selling WhatsApp To Facebook Would Be The Biggest
Mistake Of Jan Koum 's And Brian Acton's Lives_ (2012):

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/12/03/why-
selli...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/12/03/why-selling-
whatsapp-to-facebook-would-be-the-biggest-mistake-of-jan-koums-and-brian-
actons-lives/)

~~~
debt
It took FB 10 years to get to where it is today. Is that a process that
WhatsApp wants to go through? I mean the finality usually ends in either an
acquisition or an IPO; having shareholders on your mind constantly seems
pretty stressful. I suppose they could've stayed private and seen what's
possible.

Either way the Forbes website is visual chaos and I'm still nauseous and
disoriented after reading that article.

~~~
stevelaz
Update for you! Hahaha, I love that you said that about Forbes.Com. Hate that
site...

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flashfabrixx
Despide the fact that everybody got a strange feeling when reading the name
"Facebook" in combination with WhatsApp:

Congrats to the team of WhatsApp to build such a successful product in five
years with a team of 32 engineers (~ $500 million/engineer). Reminder: They
nearly replaced the SMS service worldwide.

Let's hope that the words by Mark Zuckerberg will be the truth and WhatsApp
will be kept as an independent product in the future.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "a team of 32 engineers (~ $500 million/engineer)"

Only if you consider the other employees worth/value to be $0.

~~~
rahij
An article mentions that Whatsapp spent $0 on user acquisition and marketing.
If that's true, then yes, it's around $500 million/engineer.

~~~
jaredsohn
Even if the company had nonengineers, it doesn't affect the ratio between
revenue and engineers. The statistic usually does not imply that engineering
is solely responsible for the success. Further, it generally can be hard to
determine what portion of revenue is due to engineering versus
marketing/sales, since the functions work together in a dependent way to make
money.

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habosa
The fact about WhatsApp that blew me away is that they have 72% DAILY active
users. I can't think of any other service with that kind of engagement. Even
Facebook must be impressed at how often people come back to WhatsApp.

~~~
ulfw
It's just the nature of the service. It's a text messaging app. When you get a
text you open it. I bet gmail has a similar active user ratio.

~~~
habosa
Of course, but it's amazing that a start up with such basic features has
gotten to the point where you can compare it to texting or email as far as
engagement.

~~~
ulfw
What do you mean? IT IS TEXTING! It's texting via a TCP connection and with
the help of Apple's and Google's push messaging servers instead of going
through the SMS channel of a GSM network. As a product it's the exact same as
SMS/MMS. Just the technical implementation is different.

~~~
habosa
Well that different technical implementation made it much more attractive to
millions of people worldwide. Sounds like a win.

Also I don't think they use Apple and Google's push servers since this also
runs on J2ME devices, Windows phone, Symbian, etc.

~~~
ulfw
Of course they're not using Apple's push servers on J2ME devices. They're
using it on iOS. Of course they're not using Google's push servers on Windows
Phone devices. They're using it on Android.... How else would you get
notified?

Also I never said it wasn't attractive. I just tried to explain that
conceptionally as a product it's the same as text messaging and should thus
have similar Daily to Monthly User ratios.

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gz5
~$40/user. Skype, second time, sold for ~$15/user. Time Warner just sold for
~$4/user.

Good thing for FB bank account that "OTT messaging" is just a fad while the
carriers get their acts together ; )

~~~
venomsnake
Is it even possible to monetize the app to such extent? I tried to use it a
few times but never managed to see any hard money potential inside.

~~~
dualogy
You "monetize an app like that" by selling it to FB or the stock market.

~~~
Diamons
Aka bubble

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soup10
Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.

Here's what will change for us:
[http://i.imgur.com/3Px9d9K.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/3Px9d9K.jpg)

~~~
yaeger
That's what I don't get. If nothing will change for the users, then why did
Facebook acquire them? Why did they bother? Just so that they can run
statistics and include WhatsApps numbers in there as well because they now
belong to the same organisation?

~~~
ryanSrich
Diversification. Aquire as many relevant products as you can to stay, well,
relevant. If Facebook.com is losing users then it makes sense for them to use
the money they have now to buy a company that's gaining users.

~~~
eevilspock
Then why WhatsApp over thousands of other companies they could have acquired?
No, there has to be another reason and there is no way WhatsApp is not going
to change because of this. Their saying it won't change is like the like a
corporate VP stepping down "to spend more time with his family".

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bigje54
Viber has 200M users as of May 7, 2013. Rakuten purchased them for $900M on
Feb. 14, 2014.

Very similar apps. Although WhatsApp does ask for $0.99 after 1 year usage.
Not sure that is worth the $18.1B difference in price?

~~~
loceng
WhatsApp is dominant player, and so they can leverage a higher ask. Not sure
it's going to save Facebook in the end though.

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CmonDev
"Almost five years ago we started WhatsApp with a simple mission: building a
cool product used globally by everybody. Nothing else mattered to us.

Today we are announcing a partnership with Facebook that will allow us to
continue on that simple mission."

Should be followed with this then:

"This is why we are not going to keep any money to ourselves and invest in our
infrastructure and employees."

Hate CEO bullshit, just be frank.

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fhd2
So much about not selling ads and collecting personal data then I suppose? I
actually thought they meant it. [1]

Now I'm really excited about heml.is.

[1] [http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-
sell-...](http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-ads/)

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UVB-76
Assuming this is an acquisition, it's a poor one. Facebook undoubtedly paid
too much for this.

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nighthawk24
Aand there goes my 3 years advance payment for service to waste.. Just Deleted
WhatsApp account

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fiatjaf
"Almost five years ago we started WhatsApp with a simple mission: building a
cool product used globally by everybody. Nothing else mattered to us."

That's probably a lie. That wasn't the first thing they thought before
starting WhatsApp.

~~~
fiatjaf
This blog post is pure bullshit. They built a new version of ICQ, luckly
people joined and network effects made them big -- not their competence or the
quality of the product. They shouldn't be proud of their work.

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tomphoolery
Ah yes, this reminds me of that old joke...

> Why did Facebook buy WhatsApp?

Because Snapchat isn't for sale.

~~~
dpiers
Or because the daily messaging volume through Facebook-owned services now
surpasses global SMS volume.

~~~
alixr
Was WhatsApp really that successful? I can't imagine it caught on with many
young adults or older who have no trouble paying for SMS given the
convenience. Is their demographic comprised of kids?

~~~
acmecorps
Not in US, but it's absolutely big in Asia.

[http://gigaom.com/2013/11/26/study-facebook-messenger-
still-...](http://gigaom.com/2013/11/26/study-facebook-messenger-still-reigns-
in-the-u-s-but-other-countries-look-to-whatsapp/)

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pbhjpbhj
Looking at Whatsapp's legal info some notable info, nothing too surprising:

* "You expressly acknowledge and agree that in order to provide the Service, WhatsApp may periodically access your contact list and/or address book on your mobile device [...] You hereby give your express consent to WhatsApp to access your contact list and/or address book for mobile phone numbers in order to provide and use the Service. We do not collect names, addresses or email addresses, just mobile phone numbers."

* Section 3C concerning not hacking them and giving a list of tools you definitely can't use under the agreement.

* "If you are under 16 years of age, you are not permitted to use the WhatsApp Service."

* "If another user has your mobile phone number stored in their mobile phone address book or contact list, they will be able see your status information unless you have chosen to block such user."

* "The WhatsApp Site and Service are hosted in the United States and are intended for and directed to users in the United States. If you are a user accessing the WhatsApp Site and Service from the European Union, Asia, or any other region [...] you are transferring your personal information to the United States and you expressly consent to that transfer and consent to be governed by California law for these purposes."

* "In the event that WhatsApp is acquired by or merged with a third party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign the information we have collected from our users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control." [they go on to say that they may not be able to control use of information in cases which include "reorganization"]

[http://www.whatsapp.com/legal/](http://www.whatsapp.com/legal/)

Reading between the lines it seems you can hack them with fiddler (or the
like) and that the legal info is saying "your info is definitely being
monitored by USA governmental groups"?

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flomm
What could be the purpose of this aquisition if nothing changes? I suspect
WhatsApp won't change immediately but after some time they do small changes
towards a facebook integration.

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heifetz
19bn, 16bn of which is inflated Facebook stock. Zuckerberg knows what he is
doing, he's playing the AOL tactic, better use that stock to make some
acquisitions before it tanks.

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namenotrequired
Glad to see nothing will change, I hope that will be true on the long run.

~~~
csbrooks
Is it ever true, though, in these situations?

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grinich
Instagram is pretty much the same.

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KevinAtHome
Today I started using Threema. Secure, group chat, picture stuff, and privacy
seems alright.

~~~
hershel
If you really want secure , TextSecure is the best in that regard - according
to crypto guys.

~~~
new_test
Telegam FTW!!!

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pcocko
After this message they raise their glasses and make a toast

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monsterix
That's splendid news!

I firmly believe that it is consumer apps, and consumer apps alone, that can
give blazing home runs like this one.

Despite the risk, numerous deaths, blood and corpses all over the place.
Somehow valley since last September had been running after enterprise junk but
that's not where the gems lie (My opinion of course!). There is money in
enterprise but no home run possible over there.

Edit: I like the way the edited title of this thread: Facebook (whatsapp.com).

~~~
k-mcgrady
It depends what you consider a 'home run'. I consider building a sustainable
business that will generate revenue and create products for the next 10/20/30
years a home run. I would consider building an app, having no business model
(admittedly Whatsapp app was generating revenue although I doubt it was much),
and being lucky enough to get acquired by a company willing to pay stupid
amounts of money to kill a competitor and keep you away from other competitors
the furthest thing from a home run.

~~~
dualogy
> It depends what you consider a 'home run'. I consider building a sustainable
> business that will generate revenue and create products for the next
> 10/20/30 years a home run.

10/20/30 years? Look those aren't the days of Henry Ford or J.D.Rockefeller..
tech is changing ever-faster at an exponential rate. You wanna create products
for 30 years, none of which will live on their own much longer than 3-4 years
(if lucky/successful in their market) because everything is constantly
changing? I agree: flipping a messenger toy to FB is a "lottery win", but "a
sustainable business that will generate revenue" for 30 years, what is that
supposed to be in today's environment? That's a bit of a pipe dream too, just
the "nobler" one.

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circlingthesun
Thats unfortunate.

