Facebook To Buy WhatsApp

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Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday February 19, 2014 @10:33AM from the hitting-the-startup-lottery dept.

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."

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Oh Good by The+Cat · 2014-02-19 10:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
1. Re:Oh Good by ozmanjusri · 2014-02-19 14:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The Internet is humanity's last chance, boys and girls.
  Yep, Skype's gone, and now WhatsApp will be ruined.
  Are there any open and demonstrably secure voice/video chat/IM etc applications in the pipeline that anyone's aware of?
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
2. Re:Oh Good by alostpacket · 2014-02-19 16:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Was WhatsApp ever secure or open? Wasn't it just a proprietary wrapper for xmpp?
  There are other jabber/xmpp/jingle clients out there. I'm not sure what is the best client but pidgin works well for most things IIRC. Miranda IM may also be worth a look, or Adium. All three are a GPL or similar license I think.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  
  --
  PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
3. Re:Oh Good by OpenSourced · 2014-02-19 21:19 · Score: 2
  
  Try Threema. Fully encrypted. But not free. And nobody you know will have it, most likely.
  In any case I wonder at so much money paid for an app to which the telecom operators can put an end to in 2 weeks, just by dropping to 0 the price of messaging. Risky, I'd say.
  
  --
  Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Bubble bursting in 3, 2, 1 ..... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 10:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

$16 billion for a messaging app? The end is nigh...
1. Re:Bubble bursting in 3, 2, 1 ..... by QuasiSteve · 2014-02-19 10:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, $16B ($4B, really, who's counting fb stock?) for:
  
  the mobile messaging platform used by over 450 million people
  ( plus underlying tech, as simple as it is )
  And this promise that nothing's going to change? Laughable. If nothing else it will receive facebook branding (subtle, such as color changes) pretty quickly, and the only reason to build it out further is so that they can reap even further benefits (read: more users) over to facebook at a later point.
2. Re:Bubble bursting in 3, 2, 1 ..... by snookiex · 2014-02-19 11:04 · Score: 2
  
  The user base is significant (and the private information that comes with it) but I agree that there's a tech bubble many times bigger than the 98's. I wonder how much will the big investors get out of it before it bursts.
  
  --
  Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
3. Re:Bubble bursting in 3, 2, 1 ..... by rudy_wayne · 2014-02-19 11:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And this promise that nothing's going to change? Laughable. If nothing else it will receive facebook branding (subtle, such as color changes) pretty quickly, and the only reason to build it out further is so that they can reap even further benefits (read: more users) over to facebook at a later point.
  "Independent"? Nothing will change? LOL. They are in for a big surprise if they actually believe Facebook's line of bullshit. And here's a short piece of one of their blog entries:
  http://blog.whatsapp.com/index...
  
  Why We Don't Sell Ads
  When people ask us why we charge for WhatsApp, we say “Have you considered the alternative?”
  At WhatsApp, our engineers spend all their time fixing bugs, adding new features and ironing out all the little intricacies in our task of bringing rich, affordable, reliable messaging to every phone in the world. That’s our product and that’s our passion. Your data isn’t even in the picture. We are simply not interested in any of it.
  Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.
  Now that Facebook has spent $4 Billion Dollars (the $12 Billion in funny money is irrelevant) these guys are in for a rude awakening.
4. Re:Bubble bursting in 3, 2, 1 ..... by michelcolman · 2014-02-19 21:47 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  So this is how you make big bucks on the internet nowadays:
  1. Launch a service that does something people really want without any of the annoyances of other similar services (ads, privacy intrusions,...) and without trying to make much money. Maybe even lose money, who cares.
  2. Get lots of users who appreciate the fact that somebody is finally catering to their needs without constantly trying to milk them for information or bombard them with ads.
  3. Sell to some big company like FaceBook for billions of dollars, which then proceeds to add the usual annoyances like ads and privacy intrusions after having promised not to do so.
  4. Goto 1.
  Rude awakening, you say? I bet they're just yelling "Profit!"
Like ping ball games by future+assassin · 2014-02-19 10:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
And if they make me have a Facebook account... by mfearby · 2014-02-19 10:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

... 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.
1. Re:And if they make me have a Facebook account... by Cid+Highwind · 2014-02-19 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Too late, you already have a Facebook account, everyone on the internet does.
  You just don't know the password yet.
  
  --
  0 1 - just my two bits
2. Re:And if they make me have a Facebook account... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 12:18 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Thanks to biometric face reading techniques this is true. Any photo of you that is on there has enough biometric data for them to uniquely identify you and who you hang out with. And people can even tag your name to the photo if you don't have an account, so they get a name to match with the biometric data. Then they can know who your friends are and family. are, the places where you go and probably some other stuff. All this because someone took some photos of you and posted them.
3. Re:And if they make me have a Facebook account... by __aaltlg1547 · 2014-02-19 13:33 · Score: 2
  
  If you've used WhatsApp, you already have one.
4. Re:And if they make me have a Facebook account... by Cid+Highwind · 2014-02-20 03:21 · Score: 2
  
  Facebook says they don't, law suits against Facebook Ireland say they do (and that it's a violation of EU data privacy laws).
  Personally, I think it would be too easy for a company that has the data on hand, and no concept of "boundaries" or "no, that's creepy" to resist. They already have millions of users complete address books from the find a friend feature, faces of people they know IRL tagged in photos, locations from check-ins, etc. it's just a matter of writing the right queries to tie them all together into a barebones profile. They either built shadow profiles for non-FB-users until the legal complaints started, or they still do but they keep them in US data centers where "your data is our trade secret" trumps "I never agreed to that!".
  
  --
  0 1 - just my two bits
sixteen billion??? by sdinfoserv · 2014-02-19 10:57 · Score: 2

$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.
1. Re:sixteen billion??? by gordo3000 · 2014-02-19 11:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  nah, seems more like they are throwing cash at every company that mimics in a superior manner any piece of fb people used to use. Chat and images are the big two,
  the problem is, any new company can come along and start the same service, at which point fb will have to buy them as well. this was the story with instagram, they then tried to buy snapchat, and now bought whatsapp.
There you go by Dunbal · 2014-02-19 11:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Time to delete my WhatsApp app.

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Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Messaging? by DogDude · 2014-02-19 11:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

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?

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I don't respond to AC's.
1. Re:Messaging? by grantek · 2014-02-19 11:29 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's Jabber, but without the hassle of account creation. Username is automatically set up as your phone number, and password is your IMEI or something.
  So it's about as secure as SMS, but also as practical for technophobes. It's free of charge and allows much more data than SMS (file transfer of pics etc.), which is why people use it.
2. Re:Messaging? by mwissel · 2014-02-19 11:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No, it's more than yet another SMS replacement.
  It can do cross-mobile-platform IM, group chats, file sharing (video and audio mostly) and as of recent push to talk communication. Also, the phone number is your user account - everyone of your phone contacts will show up in your WA contact list if they use it. Many agree it is the tidies and simplest messenger for mobile platforms around.
  On the downside there is their shitty data protection and blatant security faults in the past. On Android, you can't switch off presence and reading confirmations which is quite unfortunate if your boss or knows your phone number - they will always be able to check when you were last on.
  As much as I'd love to dispose WhatsApp, I have given up any attempt to do so. Once you registered, you can't unregister (or rather, the function does nothing) and people will continue to send you things. I resigned and tell everyone to not send any sensible information over this service and I use a modded Android app (WhatsApp+ ... you can find the project page on Google+) which allows me to hide my online status.
3. Re:Messaging? by GumphMaster · 2014-02-19 13:10 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  After you remove the massive overlap between these claimed 450 million and FaceBook's claimed 1.3 billion or so accounts, and even wider database of identities, you can map the remaining 37 people ;)
  
  --
  Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
4. Re:Messaging? by Jamlad · 2014-02-19 20:24 · Score: 2
  
  So your alternatives are: Google, Google, Google/Microsoft/Yahoo, Facebook, or Microsoft? I'm not seeing alternatives here.
Does your carrier charge you for txt? Lolz by Phil+Urich · 2014-02-19 11:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
The good thing, at least... by mousse-man · 2014-02-19 12:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

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).
Why Care by SuperKendall · 2014-02-19 12:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

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
1. Re:Why Care by rroman · 2014-02-19 12:55 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  In this thread: http://meta.slashdot.org/story... it is pretty obvious, that not only the "fuck beta" people are pissed. In that thread there were many great comments and suggestions to Dice, what is bad with beta and how should they improve it. After zero effort to improve anything, some of the very skilled people stopped to complain and started to do something about it and other people joined them on Soylentnews. Nowadays, I can assure you, that there is almost no topic on Slashdot that doesn't have some "fuck beta" comments, on Soylentnews there are almost zero "fuck beta" comments and there is also pretty on topic discussion. Surely, it isn't perfect yet, but even today, Soylentnews has better discussion than /.
2. Re:Why Care by daffmeister · 2014-02-19 15:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  We gave them feedback in October, and they ignored it.
  When the beta was re-revealed in January they hadn't even touched the biggest issue, that the comment system was fundamentally broken (not "it's got bugs" broken, but "the design is completely wrong" broken).
  Consequently there was lots of gnashing of teeth that they _still_ didn't understand that this was the core feature, and everyone that had been paying attention gave up on any hope that they would address it.
Somewhere in an office in Seongnam by Zanadou · 2014-02-19 16:35 · Score: 2

Somewhere in an office in Seongnam, several members of the KakaoTalk team just crapped their pants.
That is ridiculous by vikingpower · 2014-02-19 17:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

$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
Re:Really? by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2014-02-19 19:09 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Re:Really? by m.alessandrini · 2014-02-19 20:12 · Score: 2

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!
Re:Alternatives? by guillebot · 2014-02-20 02:20 · Score: 2

Telegram.org We already did the switch in several big groups. Dunno what I'm going to do with smaller one-to-one relations. Hope they switch also.