I work at a big government organization. Every department has its whatts group.
I know a guy at my state government cabinet. He has several whatts groups (even one with the governor himself).
I know a gentleman which is a judge. He has a group with his partner judges and one with his staff.
My point is: if whatsapp usage is so pervasive at other countries as it is at Brazil, it will soon, by (physical) social network effect, dominate USA.
The alternatives:
* Facebook Messenger: too slow. Only one friend of mine uses it.
* Telegram: looks and feels like a whatts clone. Some people here seem passionate about inviting friends, but most people I talk about fail to see any advantage in using it. Some people hate it. As a plus, it will SPAM all your contacts when you sign up.
* Google Hangout: even I can't figure out what this is. Is this SMS or a messenger application. Now my phone has another application called Messenger (from Google). Confuse. No one I know use it.
* SMS: too expensive.
* Apple Message: only Apple users can use it. People prefer whatts because everyone is there.
* Zoiper: got traction, but whatts voice messages killed it.
I had an appointment at an ophthalmologist clinic. The same day confirmation came through Whatsapp. And this is a high profile clinic in the Paulista Avenue.
Whatsapp won. Most carriers doesn't even count data usage on the app!
My neighborhood in farm country Pennsylvania, USA is entirely on whatsapp. There's a general group for the adults and a separate mom's group.
I was annoyed to have to have to install an app when I moved here ("Why can't we just use e-mail lists?" I asked) but whatsapp was so established that nobody was interested in giving it up.
How is SMS too expensive? At least in the US all the common plans come with unlimited SMS/MMS
I use Whatsapp to connect with my brother-in-law in Costa Rica and his family and thats it.
Everyone else in the US I use group messages with. There are probly 6 or 7 group message groups I use on weekly basis and more I use less frequently.
There isnt really a reason to switch from group messages to whatsapp. Especially if all the participants have an iPhone it makes things easier. I have several Android friends as well and we use group messages together.
He's not in the US. Things are different outside it.
Further, on some carriers and especially between carriers, you can't rely on an SMS reaching its destination. For all its faults -- and they are legion -- Whatsapp is a real improvement in this regard.
Interesting I never thought SMS had issues reaching destinations but I can understand how it could happen. It would also explain why having a robust/cheap SMS option would deter users from Whatsapp.
"if whatsapp usage is so pervasive at other countries as it is at Brazil, it will soon, by (physical) social network effect, dominate USA."
By using this logic, WeChat should also dominate USA - which is not happening. It's still interesting to me that WeChat is not more popular, considering its superior (for me) experience over WhatsApp.
To clarify, I am counting on the social network effect.
One person has several social connections, at church, work, gym and so on.
Your contacts have their own contacts and so on.
At some point, this network crosses borders. Being a country with so many migrants, this happens real close to you at USA.
If a Brazilian living in USA wants to talk to his family or friends in Brazil, he must use the same channel everybody here uses (or he will felt excluded).
I don't know the numbers, but this can indeed happen with WeChat, but I think whatts is used in more countries.
With so many hundreds of millions people in Asian countries using Whatsapp, it's quite surprising that more governments aren't complaining about Whatsapp's encryption. Iran just complained about Telegram and it doesn't even have end-to-end encryption by default as Whatsapp is supposed to have. I think that should tell us something about Whatsapp's E2E encryption (which again, the team has never even officially said it's using).
I live in Indonesia. Believe me, everyone is on whatsapp right now. Every community from school friends, business colleague, even neighborhood security is coordinated on a whatsapp group. The money paid by facebook for it is now seem like a great deal, as also for instagram.
As a developer, i wish they have an API though. A native desktop app is on wish list too.
This is absolutely no surprise. In Asia, WhatsApp was assumed to be on every phone and it was used instead of contracts, phone calls, and SMS for a wide range or business tasks like finding apartments, agreements with vendors, even public service announcements, during my time in Singapore. It's really not a bad idea if the security of the data can be guaranteed.
Well, I've been in most parts of Asia quite regularly except for China and Japan, and WhatsApp has been absolutely everywhere. It's in the U.S. where it has not really caught on, at least most of my friends there have never heard of it.
Line is tops in Thailand and Japan. In S. Korea it's KaokaoTalk. China prefers WeChat. Those are all big markets. So there's certainly no single dominant messaging app.
I work at a big government organization. Every department has its whatts group.
I know a guy at my state government cabinet. He has several whatts groups (even one with the governor himself).
I know a gentleman which is a judge. He has a group with his partner judges and one with his staff.
My point is: if whatsapp usage is so pervasive at other countries as it is at Brazil, it will soon, by (physical) social network effect, dominate USA.
The alternatives:
* Facebook Messenger: too slow. Only one friend of mine uses it.
* Telegram: looks and feels like a whatts clone. Some people here seem passionate about inviting friends, but most people I talk about fail to see any advantage in using it. Some people hate it. As a plus, it will SPAM all your contacts when you sign up.
* Google Hangout: even I can't figure out what this is. Is this SMS or a messenger application. Now my phone has another application called Messenger (from Google). Confuse. No one I know use it.
* SMS: too expensive.
* Apple Message: only Apple users can use it. People prefer whatts because everyone is there.
* Zoiper: got traction, but whatts voice messages killed it.