Here's a good clip on the deal: WhatsApp has garnered over 450 million monthly active users globally with 70% active on any given day, higher than the 62% engagement rate Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB <http://www.valuewalk.com/stock-data/?stock_symbol=NASDAQ:FB>) reported last quarter. It facilitates more than 19 billion sent messages and 34 billion received messages daily (a single message can be sent to multiple people), which, according to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB<http://www.valuewalk.com/stock-data/?stock_symbol=NASDAQ:FB>), is similar to the size of the entire global SMS market. WhatsApp's capabilities go well beyond text messages, with more than 600 million photos uploaded per day and more than 200 million voice messages and 100 million video messages sent per day.
On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: > The WhatsApp/FaceBook deal was a surprise for me, I simply wasn't hip > enough to even *know* about WhatsApp. > > Well, it turns out its a replacement for SMS. We folks in the US don't > use SMS which originated in the cellular system early on as a way to get > all of the third world able to message *very* cheaply, thus have a reason > to *buy* a cell phone. That's not the case here, SMS is an expensive > monthly or $.25 each. USA. Sigh. > > So for what its worth, WhatsApp sneakily changed the SMS madness > (virtually free for cellular carriers due to using 180 free bytes in the > control channel but heck why not rip off customers) by making "messages" > free. > > Interesting. So the entire world can now give the finger to slimy > cellular providers, but at the cost of joining yet another "service" with > all your personal information. Oh well, who cares. > > Even more clever, FB figured out that this would greatly enhance its > service. Be nice to see how they plan to integrate it into FB, but still, > at around 16Billion$. Basically they look at this as capturing the world > wide cellular network. > > Apparently WhatsApp and FB have very different ideas on privacy. I bet > the worst one wins. > > Naturally anything this big is going to be the cyberslime magnet, gold > medal target. Cant wait for the first billion user leak. And no, > passwords won't help. Not sure even about 2-factor. > > -- Owen >
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