

What’s Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That’s What - shivam14
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/02/whats-up-with-whatsapp-facebook-might-want-to-buy-it-thats-what/

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zack12
Whatsapp is a little gem on a company which no one talk about. It's hard to
get inside information about the company on the internet, and maybe that's the
geniuses of co-founders. They don;t talk so much about the company and instead
focus on building a quality product.

On a comparative note, the product is actually not so good(maybe because of
the sacle they are operating on). They have problems with their backend, few
of the front end apps are not so good eg blackberry but increasing number of
users is an achievement which is the scary part for facebook. I am in
Pakistan. This is a place where most people don't use credit cards on the
internet, sms packages are dirt cheap like $1/month for unlimited texting, and
we have no 3G internet(only EDGE) but still majority of the people use
whatsapp. Almost everybody i know uses whatsapp and they have been using for
more than a year. One you get hooked on whatsapp people are forced to pay.

Whatsapp has a lot of potential to challenge facebook to a certain extend.
They introduced profile pictures a while back, and the 'last seen at' update
is like a gold. Ramp up whatsapp with a few BBM like features, extensive photo
sharing, and geo location features(anonymously chat with people near you) and
they can be a worthwhile competitor.

~~~
shmerl
Why would you call a gem, a company which proliferates insecure walled IM
gardens (based on non compliant XMPP which precludes using any normal
clients), instead of advancing secure and federated IM networks based on
standard XMPP interoperable with any compliant client? Their approach is
really ugly.

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Apocryphon
Did they fix the crucial security exploits pointed out previously?

<http://fileperms.org/whatsapp-is-broken-really-broken/>

I guess they didn't.

<http://fileperms.org/whatsapp-security-fails-again/>

~~~
dutchbrit
No, they haven't :)

I reported on the IMEI/Android issue by the way:
[http://samgranger.com/whatsapp-is-using-imei-numbers-as-
pass...](http://samgranger.com/whatsapp-is-using-imei-numbers-as-passwords/)

Ezio Amodio reported it for iOS & Windows phone shortly afterwards:
<http://www.ezioamodio.it/?p=29> & <http://www.ezioamodio.it/?p=49>

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sssparkkk
Am I the only one who's a bit sad that the biggest success of a nice open-
standards protocol (XMPP) has been it's usage in a closed-down proprietary
form? I mean, Whatsapp have done some cool stuff, but I really would have
liked to finally see a dominant but open instant messaging network.

Howcome Google hasn't bought these guys?

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kang
My friends here in India use it because its free the first year. Almost
everyone I know is on Whatsapp. But the moment they have to pay, everyone will
switch. I know of nobody in person (who own the latest pretty expensive
smartphones, except iphones which are not big in India) to have "ever paid for
any" app.

Its not about being stingy, but more of a mentality where we know a
hack/solution/pirated version/alternative will come around. It always does.

~~~
fakeer
Besides, there's a small(very small or even very tiny) subset of mobile users
who are actually using WhatsApp. Not even 50% of my smart phone using friends
have 3G activated. Not 100% have Internet on mobile. So, you have to use SMS
anyway, if you require messaging. + WhatsApp is very much broken - a broken
identity management is one of the many broken things.

I ended up being textually abused by two persons when I first started using
WhatsApp few months ago. The old cell numbers of many of my friends were
assigned to others when they changed numbers and those were still in my
phonebook. My friends forgot to dissociate the numbers from WhatsApp database
and when I pinged(didn't pester) them(assuming they are my friends) two of
them got pissed off real bad. And I was like - "WTF! This is WhatsApp?". So,
WhatsApp assumes that as long as the user hasn't dissociated the numbers that
user is still using WhatsApp and is doing with the same phone/account. See
_bottom_

>> _"the moment they have to pay, everyone will switch"_.

I can confirm at least three of my friends have already uninstalled the app
after first year. It was eihter money or almost mostly very limited usability.
the new player <http://hike.in> looks very promising. Hope it's not vapour.
Especially the feature where it fills a huge hole - the other party doesn't
need to have <http://hike.in> app installed and an internet connection is not
a requirement for both the parties.

>> _of nobody in person to have "ever paid for any" app_

It's not as common place as in western countries(or purchases on that scale)
but I sure know a lot in my circle who use paid apps. Really many. Well, I
also pay for a lot of apps both on my Galaxy Nexus and Macbook Air but when it
comes to buying one of those _double digit dollar_ apps I do stop before
buying and think _whether I really need this? And is the free alternative
isn't good enough?_ I have never had _YES_ for either of the two questions,
except once. I think this is good :-)

 _bottom_ : That was the last day I used WhatsApp. KakaoTalk is far better in
that way, but except Koreans no else uses the app it seems.

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st0p
I don't know where you live, but here in the Netherlands everybody is using
it...

~~~
fakeer
I've mentioned in the comment that I live in India, my bad if I didn't. I
think OC had mentioned had mentioned it too.

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sami36
What BBM could & should have been if those geniuses at the helm RIMM had any
foresight. Apple made an iTunes version for Windows, Microsoft made Office for
Mac. if those two could work past their differences for the sake of serving
their customers, anyone can.

Early on, when iMessage was a pipe-dream &Gtalk a usability mess victim of
Google's "everything must be web" orthodoxy, RIMM could have made a killing
selling a robust no-frills honest-to-God messaging app for Android, iOS,
Windows Phone & feature phones.What a waste.

~~~
xoail
A close friend of mine from RIM told me they came pretty close to doing it.
But dropped the idea due to certain limitations/challenges 70% in.

~~~
sami36
Sounds plausible.They couldn't get email to work on the playbook when it was
first released. I still have a hard time wrapping my head about how rigid an
architecture must be to tie email to a specific device but it seems to be the
way they've designed their systems.

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purplelobster
Aaaand that's the day I stop using it.

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jsilence
Why? Because one walled garden suddenly turns into another walled garden?

There are good reasons today not to use WhatsApp.

~~~
purplelobster
Personally, I don't really trust Facebook with my data. I still use Facebook,
but as little as possible. I know WhatsApp may be data mining my conversations
too, but Facebook is a known evil to me.

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shmerl
Repeating my comments from the previous thread which was deleted for some
reason:

Why would people be OK with constant security risk, but not OK with one time
registration step for normal XMPP service? XMPP clients are available for all
major desktop and mobile platforms. So it's a really interesting psychological
hook that Whatsapp developers catch their users on here, offering a completely
inferior solution, with selling it of for the fake attraction. And it's a
really nasty thing to do - to play on people's ignorance regarding security.

So why would Facebook want to buy this monstrosity? The only valid reason
could be to convert it to proper XMPP, then I'd applaud them, but on the other
hand Facebook's own IM service isn't federated, which defeats the purpose. So
it doesn't look like it can improve Whatsapp in any way.

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gghootch
As a long time user who profited from their first free download promotion, I
have been wondering how the hell whatsapp can remain profitable for many years
to come. Moving to .99 cents/year sounds great, but expect a massive user
exodus.

Many users out there are stingy as hell. I have actually heard people argue
that they don't want an iPhone because you have to _pay_ for whatsapp...

Let's hope that their dominance of the market is enough to incentivize users
to pay forever. Oh, and that they do not actually sell out to Facebook.

~~~
qnk
Dominance does not guarantee users' loyalty. Whatsapp is huge in Euope, but
LINE[1], the Japanese alternative is now having an impressive growth in
Spanish speaking countries. Las time I heard, they had 75 million users.

This demonstrates that this market is not still settled down and can still be
disrupted.

The main reasons people is switching to LINE are stickers (huge emoticons that
you get for free and with extra paid packages) and they have a desktop client,
along with the possibility to run on iPods and iPads, probably Whatsapp's most
requested feature.

[1] <http://line.naver.jp/>

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fmavituna
Whatsapp is the perfect example of "solve something people need". You don't
need to solve it "perfectly" or "10 times better".

Combined with network and lock-in effects, it's a great business on a good
enough application and an obvious idea. Which makes it even more impressive.

P.S. I think many tried to do similar things before or after but failed. So
I'm not quite sure what make whatsapp stand out. Any ideas? First comer?
Better UX? Cheaper? Better cross-platform support? Better marketing?

~~~
sathyabhat
I think it's cross-platform support plus the fact that you didn't have to sign
up to create yet another account id that led to it's success. You install the
app, run it and bam! Whoever's already using it is ready to talk, without
having to invite/add and such stuff

~~~
incision
The lack of a sign-up is huge. Off the top head, for myself and my circle of
contacts I'd say we're 4-5x less likely to try something recommended by each
other if it necessitates signing up.

Despite what seem to be a surprising number of detractors here, lets not
forgot that it's a pretty good product - fast, stable, nice enough looking and
very reliable.

It's also worth noting that if Google Talk / Messenger weren't such an
inconsistent / unreliable mess, I'd never have gone for looking another means
of messaging.

~~~
shmerl
This puzzles me. Let's compare one time action of registration for secure XMPP
service (where you have an option of choosing your own ID (JID) and password
which you can change later), as well as an option of using a client with extra
security like OTR for text messages and ZRTP for audio/video conferencing,
with the client which lets you skipping one time step of registration, but
gives it for the price of broken insecure approach of using predefined IDs and
passwords based on the device ID?

I'd say constant security risk outweighs the "burden" of one time registration
step which is a pretty familiar for any user on the web and takes just a few
seconds to complete. It's not a decent thing to do for Whatsapp developers to
play on users ignorance.

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incision
>This puzzles me.

It really shouldn't.

Seems to me you're grossly over-thinking what's important and/or understood by
any majority of the tens of millions using WhatsApp.

~~~
shmerl
I understand the psychology involved, so my remark was rhetoric. One time
comfort of avoiding registration lures users who are unaware of resulting
security risks. In essence such tradeoff doesn't worth it. It's just
unfortunate that such tricks are used by developers of Whatsapp - it's really
indecent in my opinion.

Also, instead of promoting federated XMPP (which idea is exactly one time
registration and communication with all other federated services), Whatsapp
promotes its own walled service. Double failure the way I see it.

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xoail
Epic fail: "The messaging app has users in 250 countries".

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ComputerGuru
Guys, he's actually right. There are 204 sovereign states (secondary source,
can't find the primary [0]), plus a handful of countries that are disputed
(Palestine, Kosovo, etc.)

There just simply _aren't_ 250 countries.

0: <http://imgur.com/rNDj4>

(At the time of posting, parent was below zero)

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analog
States != Countries

The UK is a single state, but comprised of at least three countries. England,
Wales, Scotland. Northern Ireland would not count as a 'country' I guess,
though Ireland itself obviously is.

~~~
barry-cotter
Whether Northern Ireland is a country depends on who you're talking to. And
possibly the day you talk to them.

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DanBlake
They are up to 10 billion msgs a day now.

So incredibly crazy- More than 100k messages a second.

~~~
rwmj
What's the benefit over email? I still don't get it.

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carlesfe
Free SMS/MMS, on countries which don't have a flat message plan, like Spain

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angry-hacker
Probably the reason ALL my Spanish friends have Whatsapp... it really is huge
over there.

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jcfrei
seems like a logical step for me. facebooks messenger is still lagging behind
whatsapp in terms of features (ie. it lacks video and audio sharing) and most
likely also in users. plus in the past year I've noticed quite a shift from
communication on facebook to dedicated whatsapp groups. it's just a much more
convenient way to share and chat with close friends and depending on the group
you're in it can be kinda addictive. needless to say I would be very
disappointed when whatsapp would become part of facebook (especially if it
would be linked to my fb profile).

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001sky
_“At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering
team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all
your personal data, upgrading the servers that hold all the data and making
sure it’s all being logged and collated and sliced and packaged and shipped
out… And at the end of the day the result of it all is a slightly different
advertising banner in your browser or on your mobile screen. Remember, when
advertising is involved you the user are the product.” [Koum's emphasis.]

And that is just one reason why a Whatsapp/Facebook acquisition would be a
surprise. At other times, Koum has been public about his distaste for startups
that sell out quickly. “Totally agree with Vinod Khosla,” he wrote in July.
“People starting companies for a quick sale are a disgrace to the valley.”
(He’s also, btw, noted that getting on TC shouldn’t be a goal in itself. Too
true.)_

\-- Sounds like another loss for the good side.

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iag
This sounds to me like a defensive move against the messaging giants of the
east (Wechat, Line, Kakao).

Thoughts on this guys?

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89a
No idea why people use it when LINE exists

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container
I hadn't heard of LINE before, but a couple of reasons might be Symbian(^3)
and S40, both of which WhatsApp supports but LINE apparently doesn't.

