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WhatsApp Now Has More Monthly Active Users Than Facebook App (venturebeat.com)
Facebook's $19 billion bet on WhatsApp in 2014, when the messaging app had 450 million active users, is beginning to pay off. From a report: In recent months, WhatsApp has surpassed Facebook's own marquee app in popularity, according to industry estimates. In September of last year, WhatsApp for the first time had more monthly active users worldwide on Android and iPhone platforms than the Facebook app, research firm App Annie said today in its annual State of Mobile report. App Annie did not share specific figures but told VentureBeat that WhatsApp has maintained its lead over the Facebook app since September.
App Annie did not share specific figures but told VentureBeat that WhatsApp has maintained its lead over the Facebook app since September.
ie. People are deleting the Facebook app in droves but not the Whatsapp app (sic).
No sig today...
How does it pay off the $19 billion? Is the data collected from users already worth $42 per user? Or is the pay off happening just in techno bubble money, ie. in numbers of users?
No Facebook in years but I occasionally use Whatsapp to communicate with colleagues, usually in groups and international colleagues. I noticed WhatsApp is quite popular in some geographies.
Also, sInce the only reason to buy an iPhone is to use Messages and FaceTime, WhatsApp can be a way to wean oneself away from Apple.
Of course, I don't share my contacts with WhatsApp and I try to touch it only with a proverbial 10 foot pole in general, especially because it's owned by Facebook..
I don't know about you but most people are totally cool with adding me on Facebook as opposed to giving me their phone number... whatsapp is highly primitive, doesn't do anything I couldn't do with ICQ 20 years ago. I seriously don't get wtf is wrong with these people creating new IM programs all the time.
Whatsapp still has no ads (as far as I can tell), and its messages are encrypted (so no data mining). So it appears Facebook isn't making money off of it. So in what sense is the $19 billion investment "paying off"?
I don't know about you but most people are totally cool with adding me on Facebook as opposed to giving me their phone number... whatsapp is highly primitive, doesn't do anything I couldn't do with ICQ 20 years ago. I seriously don't get wtf is wrong with these people creating new IM programs all the time.
I have a group of friends in another part of the US. They invited me to a WhatsApp group about 4 years ago. I downloaded it and immediately liked it. Here is what it offers for me over my normal texting app:
- supports long messages
- built-in ability to record audio clips
- supports large images
- supports large videos... I've gotten 30+MB videos from friends.
- ability to send location/audio/video/other files (e.g. txt, pdf, etc). I once sent a 30 MB PDF to a friend via WA. Can't even email that!
- group chat - this is the main reason I use it, as there are about 10 people in the current chat. I know you can group text, but this is just done much better. I also have a GC with my wife and daughter.
- integrated audio/video calls
- works over wifi - this was especially helpful for me when i traveled to india. I could turn off my service and just use wifi.
- I can WA with people in India (and when I was there) without phone service
- more reliable! I always get WA messages, I often don't get calls or texts. (same with my wife, who has a different phone)
- WA web - it is really nice to pull up WA on my computer and use it there.
The serious downside I see is that it is now owned by FB, which I don't use or want to use. But I like WA so much I don't want to drop it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Face it.
These messenger apps, have been doing the same thing for the past 20+ years?
I never really see a reason to switch other then the fact the people who I want to chat with are on an other service?
I remember doing ICQ, to AOL Instant Messenger, Then to Facebook messenger. Over the decades I havn't really seen any killer feature in them. The biggest features I have seen was Group Chats, and image and video attachments.
They all seem to want to give us Ads, an or collect my data, and have to go via some sort of centralized server where any message could be spied upon.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
People are deleting the Facebook app in droves but not the Whatsapp app (sic).
And in fact WhatsApp is still rising in popularity, which was the entire point behind buying it (and Instagram) back then.
Zuckerberg has seen predecessors coming and going (thing MySpace's fall from popularity).
That eventually Facebook will wane out was absolutely totally predictable, it wasn't a question of "if" but "when".
So of course, Zuckerberg paid extremely close attention to emerging *future competitor* (instead of contemporary competitors), and bought them to be ready for the "Post-Facebook" era.
WhatsApp and Instagram were the under-dog apps rising in popularity (specially among younger generations) back then, the Zuckerberg bought them, and had the "Post-Facebook" era insured.
(And laughs anytime people are outraged and delete the Facebook App)
The problem is not Facebook (Zuckerberg is already prepared for that).
The problem is what comes after the "Post-facebook" era, what will come after Instagram and WhatsApp, when people will start deleting *that* one. The "Post-post-facebook" era, if you will.
Snapchat and musica.li/Tiktok seems to be the one rising in popularity in the youngest generation (kids don't want to be on the same platform as their parents, but the same as their friends. Network effect in social media doesn't seem to last over several generations).
The huge problem, the thorn in the foot of Zuckerberg's Machiavellian plan to perpetuity, is that the first one has actively resisted any attempt of buy out, and the second is doing its own merging and buyouts and becoming a sizable competitor in China (And who knows, might even end up being bought by Tencent, depending on how their current kerfuffle ends up).
So Zuckerberg sadly doesn't have any solid plan for after WhatsApp, the "Post-post-facebook" era.
But then, by that time he might be retiring with his billiion and letting Facebook try to survive on its own (see Bill Gates and Microsoft).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I have zero faith in anything this story reports. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Twitch, all of them have millions if not billions of botted accounts that are NOT real. Last I checked Twitch was growing at a rate of about a thousand per minute (was writting an ap ironically enough to detect chatbots, couldnt' believe how many were being created).
Then you have the Youtube sub war with Pewdiepie (https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/19/01/02/214215/hackers-are-taking-over-chromecasts-to-promote-a-youtube-channel). Millions of accounts being created just to sub/follow.
tl;DR - Botnets are a quiet problem no one in tech companies wants to actually fix because it will affect their bottom line too. Though they are certainly quick to point out "russian botnets". Your typical investment drone / executive has no idea.
If it's worth $4 per user per year, they made a 10% return on their money this year and that amount is growing. So yes, it's probably worth $42/user - over some time period. And the number of users is growing.
The big question is return of principal AND investment return. Will the popularity of WhatsApp either last long enough or grow big enough, or be sold for enough, to only make good return on the investment each year, but also get the $18 billion back. It'll almost certainly generate $18 billion, but Facebook already had $18 billion they spent on WhatsApp. It needs to return double that over ten years to be a good investment.
Everybody in Africa uses it to make free phone calls!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They spent $18 billion to maintain their monopoly on social media.
The numbers show that they have succeeded.
WhatsApp, very useful, works well and we use it all the time at work for project work as it allows fast comms during hectic delivery periods. I believe emergency crews during terrorist attacks in the UK used small WhatsApp groups to co-ordinate activities as it was faster than the networks supplied by their employers.
WhatsApp may be harvesting my info as payment for it's "free service" but that's a price I will pay as I get a solid benefit from it. Facebook and its social media apps exist as nothing more than boils on the ass of the Internet!
Maybe that's because Facebook's mobile apps suck and no one uses them, even on smartphones where Facebook has tried to all but disable the mobile web browsers?
Seriously, it's not because WA is any good, it's because FB is so bad and only old people use it anymore.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The numbers show that users are switching from Facebook to WhatsApp. The purchase didn't change that.
The people who own Facebook now also own WhatsApp.
In some contexts that makes a big difference, in some contexts it doesn't.
Would be fun to watch FB die separately of WhatsUp and Instagram if they FB will get split. Though it won't be, as WeChat is not going anywhere...
Facebook owns WhatsApp, so what's the fucking difference? You think they keep your data isolated? If you use WhatsApp, you are a Facebook user as well, or might as well be, and your data goes to the same places.
--- Keep the choice with the user..