

What WhatsApp can learn from mobile payments in Asia - drflet
http://www.beaconreader.com/hamish-mckenzie/19b-doesnt-make-it-brilliant

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yason
Facebook needs to either reinvent itself or go back to its roots and I'm
afraid that buying success stories with billions isn't going to help in that.

Facebook is currently rather incapable of delivering what I originally signed
up for when I joined: keeping posted about how my friends are doing, and thus
having the incentive to post something about my life as well because my
friends could see how I'm doing. I can't in practice control what I see and
how much I see from each friend. Things happen and I don't know about them
until I happen to read through my friend's timeline manually. I don't know who
actually sees my posts. That makes it rather useless.

The core of what Facebook used to be would be really simple to implement and
most people wouldn't genuinely need much more.

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balladeer
I uninstalled WhatsApp 3 days back (deleted 3 somewhat largish groups of 15,
43 and ~34 - they all agreed to move to Viber). At least 10-15 of my friends
have already done the same (uninstalling part). Almost everyone is one Viber
anyway and some are now on Telegram too.

Now, I don't know how much such migrations will affect user-base (and I don't
guess too much) but it can be noted that this is also the user-base that does
online shopping, rates products and does a lot of things online, so this is
certainly going to put a dent.

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jagira
WhatsApp is successful because it is just a simple messaging app and is free
of any bloat that converts it to a platform.

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abalone
Why do so many people think payments is the key to monetization? Is it really
as dumb as "it involves money"?

Payment processing is a total commodity business that is super-resistant to
increasing its tiny margins, which is what would need to happen to monetize it
to the tune of a 10 digit valuation.

In comparison layering advertising or premium features on top of messaging is
a much more feasible way to generate revenue, since that is pure margin. It's
not a superficially sexy / hand-wavey though.

~~~
SandersAK
I don't think it's about payments per se, it's about owning the moment when
spending money is required / relevant for the user.

If you're in a chat app all damn day (like all my family is), and something
comes up (OMG it is Dad's birthday), I'd rather just get the shopping,
reservations, etc done right then and there at the point of relevancy.

WeChat's success isn't about having the credit card, it's about making that
moment of action extremely fluid.

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meritt
[http://youtu.be/WgAtBTpm6Xk?t=14m40s](http://youtu.be/WgAtBTpm6Xk?t=14m40s)

WhatsApp CEO responding to a similar question in an interview.

"The basic idea will continue to be a simple messaging app."

"That's the beauty of an open and free market system, you can go download
another application that let's you do that [share ephemeral photos]"

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RyanZAG
Most people just want a messenger though. They're not really interested in
their messaging client selling them stuff. Feels like the article makes a
pretty bold leap in assuming because a messaging company is experimenting with
a store front, the company is actually succeeding in converting messaging
users to purchasing users. I'm fairly sure that conversion number is extremely
low, especially in China.

~~~
chaz
WeChat would tell you otherwise. They launched a taxi-cab hailing service in
January. In the first month, 21 million cabs were hailed.
[http://www.techinasia.com/wechat-21-million-taxi-rides-
booke...](http://www.techinasia.com/wechat-21-million-taxi-rides-booked/)

This is why messaging is a threat to Google and Facebook -- it's an entire
ecosystem that sidesteps their channel.

~~~
thinxer
There are two tech giants (Tencent and Alibaba) trying to grasp the mobile
payment market. In fact they are "paying" users for taxi.

~~~
chaz
Nothing wrong with that -- it's just paying an acquisition cost. PayPal paid
out millions: $10 for new registrations, and $10 to the referring user back in
1999 (?). By incentivizing customers to add payment info, it takes the
friction out of future opportunities.

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Dragoncry
As people have mentioned already, Whatsapp is successful because it is simple
and functional. Just because the revenue model of Whatsapp is simple doesn't
mean it is less effective. Moreover, I believe 'platforms' are overrated.
Facebook is a platform. But it is trying really hard to stay relevant today
($19 billion!).

Messaging should be private; not a platform.

