Yes, it is a SMS replacement. It offers SMS functionality with "iPhone bubble
view", a lot of icons/smilies and easy photo and video exchange. It is very
popular here in Europe, nearly everyone I see in the subway uses it. In the
first year it is free of charge, in the following years about 1$. The price
Facebook paid is ridiculous high, though. Apparently they seem to have paid
mainly to acquire the large amount of user data.
-J.
Sent from my Tricorder
<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Owen Densmore
<[email protected]> </div><div>Date:22/02/2014 19:04 (GMT+01:00)
</div><div>To: Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> </div><div>Subject:
[FRIAM] WhatsApp ... Death of SMS? </div><div>
</div>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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