Slashdot Mirror
Facebook To Buy WhatsApp
Facebook has announced an agreement to buy WhatsApp, the mobile messaging platform used by over 450 million people. The deal involves $4 billion in cash and an additional $12 billion in Facebook stock. They say WhatsApp will remain independent; its headquarters won't move, and it will continue to exist separately from Facebook's Messenger app. Mark Zuckerberg indicated they will focus on growth: 'Over the next few years, we're going to work hard to help WhatsApp grow and connect the whole world. We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts for Internet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone.' On WhatsApp's blog, they say, "Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing. WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently."
We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts for Internet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone
Yet another attempt to control the Internet.
They're coming. And they will not stop until they own it or destroy it.
The Internet is humanity's last chance, boys and girls. We lose it and we're looking at 1000 years of darkness.
$16 billion for a messaging app? The end is nigh...
That's pronounced what-a-sap, right?
449.99 million people ditched WhatsApp.
Not for long.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
WhatsApp is dead... WhatsNext?
Remember where the scores on pinball machines were sane then one day I saw the ST TNG pinball and the score was like in the millions. Was like WTF? The pricing on some of these virtual companies is the same.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
... UNINSTALL! I refuse to have a Facebook account and if Whatsapp starts making it mandatory to have one, then I'll go back to plain old SMS.
$16B!! Are they nucking futs? It feels to me – as someone who worked through InetBubbleBurst 1.0 - like FB is flailing at something, anything, using the huge cash cache it’s currently sitting on in a feeble and misdirected attempt at non-relevance. Just proof that huge dollars huge brains.
That's why the many millions and billions. We rather need news that financially measures in micro-mills.
I'm serious.
Time to delete my WhatsApp app.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I read the web site, and I still don't understand what this web site is all about. Is it really just yet another messaging platform designed to get around SMS messaging charges? Am I missing something obvious?
1. There are tons and tons of ways to send messages to people last I checked. Why is this one worth "$16B"?
2. Who still pays for SMS messages? I've had unlimited texting plans for the better part of a decade, and they're cheaper than most people's cable TV bills. Are text messages significantly expensive outside of the US?
I don't respond to AC's.
It is not like IM was invented yesterday you know? Some of us have better things to do than figure out what's the irrelevant app of the day.
And 4-digit UIDs are still available!
Kid-proof tablet..
Yeah! Better things! Like posting on Slashdot, amirite guys?!
You've never heard of it? Are you still using your carrier's txt plan? Lolz
Why wouldn't I? I can text anyone anywhere in the world for free, and I don't have to worry about whether we're using the same service and if they actually still check that service or blah blah blah. And services like WhatsApp are tied to phone numbers anyways, so WhatsApp users are just a subset of people with numbers I could text to.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Younger people ( say 35 ) have been fleeing Facebook in droves, because it's been around a while, and not "cool" when your PARENTS have joined, friended you, friended your friends, and then gossip more to you about what they're doing than you know yourself. Because they're old and have no life. I deal with this every day. Needless to say, Mark is keeping 'Whatsapp' separate because he knows that Facebook will be toast within the next 10 years and he doesn't want to drag this investment down by attaching it to an ailing brand. Wise move.
Is that software even secure as of today? Last time I was reading, it used reverse IMEI as it's password for message encryption, and there has been software to imitate another user, exploiting this flaw.
Might try another IM app, if I'll ever need one (IRC is all I need). ::B
When is fuckedcompany.com coming back?
Or is it just too sad to see that the internet is basically ran by 1/1000th of the amount of manpower in the 90's with 1000X the power/capacity?
will be that WHEN the bubble blows, only shareholders will be left to hold the bag, not taxpayers (except maybe through bad investment into their retirement funds).
AC's be hatin'. the pain, the pain.
Why would I want to join a site where all of the other idiots that keep posting Beta messages over stories have gone to?
Good riddance, I say. Slashdot has been pretty good over the last week or so.
Good luck with your proto-Digg. You're gonna need it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The new and exciting "Smoke Signal" app. 1 puff signals "danger", 2 puffs for the "all clear" and of course 3 puffs for "party at my place".
And it's a horrorshow - it takes the worst of Slashdot and the worst of Slashdot Beta, mixes them up and... the sum is worse than the parts.
I currently live in Asia. Whatsapp is very, very popular over here.
A good number of my European contacts are also using it.
I don't know how popular it is in the USA.
I find it a very useful piece of software, one of the most used apps on my iphone.
Somewhere in an office in Seongnam, several members of the KakaoTalk team just crapped their pants.
Just like the DMV? They have every eligible driver's face/name/addy/gender... Why doesn't facebook buy that database, too?
It's worse.
Prior to social networks we had some solace knowing that many third-world countries do not keep good computer records and have close to null snooping because people just weren't into e-commerce / had language barriers / found no real way to get their daily news online instead of local TV and papers.
Enter FB tagging and its inconvenient side-effect of transcending borders when you take your camera overseas. Those unfortunate enough to know you are thus entered into the DB even if they never had the desire to come live in the USA with a DMV ID card + associated NSA snooping. Kinda reminds me of how while Friendster started as a US business, within a couple years it was like 40% filipino users.
$19,000,000,000 for an app that does not make money and has 32 employees. IMHO it shows that Facebook is slowly panicking.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Here's a map (which is about a year old, to be fair): http://cdn.iphoneincanada.ca/w...
You'll note that WhatsApp doesn't have a whole lot of usage in the US. It's quite popular in Europe and the South America.
I already have one, but thanks just the same.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
While we're at it, question marks aren't lead
That's right, they're not made from Element #82.
with a space
(They're not preceded by spaces, either.)
and they belong on the inside of quotation marks.
Sometimes Yes, sometimes No; it depends on the context. If you're asking a question about what's quoted, then the question mark goes on the outside. So in this case, he's right and you're wrong.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This is slashdot. Why dont somebody just write a browser plugin that enforces the "classic" site and nukes any threads about "beta"?
It is not like IM was invented yesterday you know? Some of us have better things to do than figure out what's the irrelevant app of the day.
I've never heard of it either and I'm not that old, maybe it's only popular in certain regions? One of those third world fads?
I get the impression that it is popular in *cough* certain countries *cough* where the telcos freely rape their customers over text messages and mobile data.
Where I live (Sweden), I get unlimited texting and nearly unlimited (5GB/mo) data for about 50 bucks a month. Since this is a very typical plan from a very typical Scandinavian carrier (Telenor), I am not surprised that I've neither seen nor heard of this app before.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You spend 50$ a month? And you say that other countries' telcos are raping their customers? Here in Italy I pay 6 EUR a month and I have 120 minutes of calling, 120 SMS, and 2GB data. Not unlimited, but quite enough (for me). And even before I had a flat plan I did not pay all that much!
19 billion for an instant messaging app!! surely didn't see this coming.
Honestly, there should be a viable, easy-to-use alternative to Facebook which respects your privacy and doesn't have shady dealings with a government and isn't run by a functionally retarded man-child. But if there is one, well I don't know about it. And if I don't know about it, then 95% of people don't know about it.
Same with WhatsApp. It's very useful, but this isn't advanced AI here: it's pretty clear what it does and how it does it. Where is the good, user-friendly, open-source alternative?
I'm also pissed here because I actually liked WhatsApp as an app and respected their "mission statement" - was even willing to pay for it in exchange for (what I thought) was a little privacy. But in the end they turned out to be whores, to Facebook of all companies, for whom I have a particularly acute contempt.
My Soylent UID is even lower than my Slashdot one :-)
Soylent looks great TBH. I can actually see myself switching over if Slashdot's owners are determined to ruin all that is good about their web site with a crappy "modern looking" redesign.
Hello, Telegram. https://telegram.org/
Make sure your friends know about this app, It needs critical mass, nobody is using it.
Can anyone suggest alternatives? Free or paid, but equivalent functionality?
They're not only stealing a few hundreds million phone numbers, they steal the phone directories or at least subsets of them.