So much technology for so much trivial and superficial purposes ... as
similarly and amply portrayed (perhaps unintentionally) on Generation
Like <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/generation-like/> (PBS
Frontline 2) ... it's all about ads.
Robert C
On 2/22/14 1:33 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
Don't both iPhone and Android have built in alternatives that just use
the network? A brief search showed iPhone had one. SMS as a carrier
service is so yesterday.
On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Christopher Koch
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Sorry to barge in like this, I've been just a lurker on this list
for years. Here I am writing something.
WhatsApp is very popular in Germany/Europe. On my last trip over
there I finally had to get it, too, just to communicate with
friends and family.
Facebook paid way too much money. The whole thing seems to be a
flop for Facebook though: I've been seeing campaigns --
ironically, on Facebook -- for deletion of WhatsApp because of
"privacy concerns." Seems it's already too late for that anyway,
and the advised replacement is Threema or in some rare instances
telegram.org <http://telegram.org>.
On 02/22/2014 11:07 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
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] <mailto:[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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