We already know what a great application whatsapp messenger is!!It is a saviour from long text bills.It became famous and popular in a very less time among smartphone users. Its infamous buyout by Facebook for $19 billion out of which they paid $4 billion in cash plus $12 billion in Facebook shares and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units given to WhatsApp’s founders.And now it stands proudly with more than 700million cutomers wordwide!!
So what is Whatsapp and what makes it so great??well,for starters this is simply a fast peer to peer cross platform messaging application available for Android,Apple,Blackberry,Nokia and other users.Most important features include attaching files,creating groups and whatsapp status.
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Rise of Whatsapp Messenger.
The most important factors are
1)Great speed:-there were thousand of messengers before whatsapp and thousand of messengers such apps pops out every day.However the instant speed provided by whatsapp is just terrific.Mobile phones are like an extension of the human body now and the lightness that Whatsapp brings ensures that people on business groups notice the messages quicker and the corresponding action also comes about faster.
2)Quick and great support:-Handling communication with users is another aspect that Whatsapp helps in achieving. Businesses have dedicated Whatsapp numbers where users can message to get answers to their questions.
3)Platform support:-After testing vigorously in beta stage, the application was launched in November 2009 for the first time on the Apple Store for iPhone. In January 2010, support for BlackBerry smartphones was added, and subsequently Symbian in May 2010 and Android in August 2010. In August 2011 a beta for some Nokia Series 40 was added and it became the first non-smartphone OS which could support whatsapp messanger as whole.few days later support for Windows Phone was added, and then BlackBerry 10 in March 2013.The oldest device currently capable of running WhatsApp officially is the Symbian-based Nokia N95 released in March 2007.In 2014, WhatsApp has released an update to its Android app, adding support for Android Wear smartwatches.On January 21, 2015, WhatsApp launched a web client which can be used from Google’s Chrome browser to send messages.
However having said that,there are many aspects that still bothers whatsapp users like
1)Number of member limitations:-There is a 100 member per group limitation.This number stop organizations and institution from using whatsapp as their communication medium.However this may end soon according to whatsapp officials.
2)Security:-On November 4, 2014, WhatsApp scored 2 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s secure messaging scorecard. It lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key the provider doesn’t have access to, users can’t verify contacts’ identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen, the code is not open to independent review, and the security design is not properly documented.A major privacy and security problem has been the subject of a joint Canadian-Dutch government investigation. The primary concern was that WhatsApp required users to upload their mobile phone’s entire address book to WhatsApp servers so that WhatsApp could discover who, among the users’ contacts, is available via WhatsApp. While this is a fast and convenient way to quickly find and connect the user with contacts who are also using WhatsApp, it means that their address book was then mirrored on the WhatsApp servers, including contact information for contacts who are not using WhatsApp. This information was stored in hashed, though not salted form and without “additional” identifying information such as a name, although the stored identifying information is sufficient to identify every contact.
3)Business model:-No one knows for sure what lies ahead of whatsapp since no one could figure out their viable business model.Just think about it..It’s free for android,$1 for iphone and they do not sell advertisements.So how do they even make money.Will they start charging or will they simply put banner ads.No one know which attracts a lot of Criticism.Some suggests that WhatsApp must make money by Data mining, by selling the vast information they collect from the messages sent by the users to big companies.However this is just theory.On the official site,founders answered why they don’t sell ads,they said “Brian and I spent a combined 20 years at Yahoo! working hard to keep the site working. And yes, working hard to sell ads, because that’s what Yahoo! did. It gathered data and it served pages and it sold ads. We watched Yahoo! get eclipsed in size by Google…”.But did’t tell us anything about future monetisation plans
Whatever may be their negatives one thing we know for sure,as for now we love them!!