Here are some numbers i can't find. The number of users chatting on yahoo, aim, facebook, msn messenger, and all the random others combined when it was a thing not to care which people were using.<p>At my job in 2011, every single member of my team was on using a different client, i was on ubuntu using Empathy.<p>The point is, chat was already resolved, and it didn't require some sort of "quiet room or distraction free office" to get it where it was.<p>Kudos to the WhatsApp team for having this many users, but let's not forget that we had no problem chatting until the facebook, yahoo, googles broke the old protocol in favor of restricting users to their own systems.
WhatsApp's success here in Brazil can be attributed to very few reasons:
1) Worked in every single smartphone (I started using it on a very resource constrained 2010's Nokia running s60)
2) SMS was and still is very expensive here.
3) Zero friction to use: it uses your phone number as your ID and your catalog list as its own.<p>It was a killer combination, almost everybody here in Brazil uses it, no matter how young or how old, no matter if it is a rich kid with the latest IPhone or the poor with the cheapest phone. Even the telcos had to bend to WhatsApp strength by offering "unlimited WhatsApp usage" on very limited data plans.
> all of its attention has gone into making the app as simple as possible to get started with<p>And they succeeded. I've been using it for years and the only new feature I remember is end to end encryption, despite they probably added new features. I don't care about status and stories, if they're still there they managed not to make them in the way of people that only want a SMS alternative. This is great design.<p>My only wish is that they stay using the very same chatbot backend of Messenger. WhatsApp is the only major chart platform without chatbots and given it's the number one in many countries, included mine, I'm a little tired to tell customers, yes but your customers will have to use Messenger or Telegram (which many people don't even know to exist.)
I'm kinda surprised to read that WhatsApp hasn't really caught on in the US—in the sense that not everyone you know uses it (on the contrary, very few do).<p>Here in India, the term 'whatsapp' has creeped its way into regular hinglish (mix of hindi and english) that most working professionals speak in. All schools, colleges, offices and even parents use WhatsApp groups to communicate. It has simply been embraced as the default place to communicate. Even drivers and servants on my contact list put up WhatsApp stories and send broadcasts; the intuitiveness of its adoption truly amazes me!
In India, Whatsapp is HUGE. I would go as far as to say if it were to go down for a day, we will see a dip in the per-day GDP. It is not that so much business is conducted on it, but also it is the dominant social messaging glue.<p>Whatsapp probably has about 220 million users in India[1] and also because of dwindling mobile data prices, it also has now become the alternate voice channel [2]. Also I read that 90% of all smart phones in India have Whatsapp installed.<p>(1) <a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/whatsapp-hits-200-mn-user-milestone-in-india/article9559045.ece" rel="nofollow">http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/whatsapp-hits-...</a>
(2) <a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/05/223-indian-whatsapp-users-video-call-for-50-million-minutes-per-day/" rel="nofollow">https://www.medianama.com/2017/05/223-indian-whatsapp-users-...</a>
Which is cool in itself.<p>What is deeply regrettable is the fact that they ended up selling to Facebook and thereby contributing to Facebook's aggressive and relentless mass surveillance system.
I think they're losing focus.<p>I've started seeing cracks in WhatsApp's UI:<p>- Some times when inserting a single emoji on a single line, in between pressing send and the message being sent, the keyboard flickers.<p>- There seems to be a mysterious space between the Euro symbol and the next character...? That space isn't displayed on the webapp.<p>- I had a third one that I forgot.<p>Also bad decisions:<p>- Logs shouldn't be backed-up to Google Drive.<p>- Bloat. "Status"? No one cares. Why does swiping left allows me to take pictures? I have a camera app that I like using.<p>- Sharing metadata with Facebook will be WhatsApp's undoing, mark my words.<p>Signal on the other hand is being developed by 1 guy and has 5M installs.
Why do we adhere to the assumption that number of users is the ultimate metric of software success?<p>I would like to hear from devs who aren't interested in expanding for the sake of expanding, who still consider their apps to be very successful.
> “Images tell a much better story than text,” he says. “And videos tell a much better story than images.<p>Seems like the evidence of WhatsApp itself, not to mention my own experience, is directly contradictory to this.<p>A video is rarely preferable to an image, and an image is rarely preferable to a bit of text.
I think WhatsApp is where Twitter was during their Ascend-to-protocol Vs Just-push-Ads phase[1], only that WA is dead-set on not going down the Ad route.
IMO their options are whether to become an app platform for businesses(Service delivery, payments, shopping) or to become a user-data source for FB.
KIM that they are naturally competing with IG & FB.com in generating revenue for FB Inc and subscription isn't working for them(mostly because of almost zero app-buying & digital payments culture in places where WA is popular).<p>[1] <a href="http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been" rel="nofollow">http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been</a>
It's super easy to focus on a single metric (user growth) when you have a seemingly unlimited amount of capital and have no immediate pressure to turn _any_ revenue/profit. This article does a massive disservice to those who are not as fortunate who will inevitably be lead into failure.<p>Note, this should not discredit the more interesting and glorified aspects of WhatsApp (strong leadership, technical aptitude, tech stack, etc).
Sorry but I don't agree with the statistic of the Status feature.<p>> the company announced that 250 million people—a quarter of all members—were using it daily<p>Just had a quick look, and I have around 150 contacts on WhatsApp (mainly the Snapchat/Instagram users age group) and not a single person has set one of these photo statuses right now. I only ever recall seeing one once, since the feature launched.<p>If I open up Snapchat/Instagram I will literally see hundreds. Unless it's become very popular within a certain country, or another age group I find it hard to believe that it's reached anywhere near the size of Snapchat's user base.
I think i see a pattern:<p>WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges<p>Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws<p>Uber: circumvent taxi laws<p>Amazon: circumvent state taxes<p>Facebook: circumvent people's anonymity online<p>Google: circumvent copyrights (take people's content slap on ads)
icq, aim, msn messenger, google talk (DOA), skype, wechat. besides widespread business adoption, what's special about this one? it's seamless to uninstall an app and get a new one. why would there be customer loyalty to this business model?<p>ot, i don't understand why anyone would want to get anywhere near mobile. people are too stupid to use these internet devices in moderation and it will destroy all social cohesion. it's a cash grab to the bottom as it devolves into radical groupthink, a breakdown of dialogue, and mass segregation of populations.<p>how is arguing about anything and everything productive or useful without domain specific expertise? how is mindlessly consuming hours and hours of infotainment benefiting anyone?<p>but i can instantly communicate to anyone around the world in a matter of milliseconds! your life is not that interesting, a letter sent by post every other month would probably be more fruitful to developing ideas, advancing discourse and carefully articulating thoughts. it's like correspondence chess vs 1 minute bullet matches. one is excited screaming and shouting, the other is a measured conversation and exchange. pretty sure e-mail hit that sweet spot decades ago, with bulletin boards and irc filling the less personal and more immediate gaps.