Tag: whatsapp

WhatsApp Now Tells You When Your Message is Read

The cross-platform mobile messaging service WhatsApp has been tweaked with a much-needed update; the messenger now shows when your message has been read. Yes, you read it right! WhatsApp will now inform you if the recipient has read the sent text or not.

This new feature works like: when you send a message and if it’s delivered, then it will show double check marks beside the text, and when your message will be read by the concerned contact, the marks will turn blue. This ‘Read Message’ feature was first spotted at the WhatsApp’s FAQ page.

This update is not just limited to one-on-one conversations, but also it extends to the group chat and broadcast messages. Once your broadcast message or the group chat has been read by all the individuals, the double ticks will turn blue.

According to a report by 9to5Mac, this feature isn’t part of an update to the app through the App Store, but an ‘over-the-air’ update sent both to iOS and Android versions of the app. The report also pointed out that a website, has released some images of the upcoming Voice-Calling feature of WhatsApp. It will roll out sometime next year, confirmed Jan Koum, WhatsApp CEO.

November 6, 2014
WhatsApp Announces ‘Free Lifetime Subscription’ for Indians

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app on smartphones today. The multiplatform app has caused a serious dent in the SMS revenue of mobile companies. It is beloved by many for its convenience and features and is a kind of mini social network. The company has a good news in store for Indians; it won’t be charging any sum for renewal of subscription of services.

Vice President of WhatsApp, Neeraj Arora, said that the company understands the low concentration of credit cards in the country, and paying for a service won’t be an option for many. The company usually charges $1 every year to renew the subscription, which is a fairly cheap price. But for Indians, WhatsApp said the magic word – Free!

Mr. Arora was speaking at his alma mater Indian School of Business, where he conversed on a lot of topics. He recalled that the founders of WhatsApp were crazy, and he got into the company by forcing his way in. He took up the bits that the founders were not interested in, like the business aspect of things. The company was recently acquired by Facebook for a gargantuan price of $19 billion.

The future of WhatsApp was also discussed, and he said that the company will remain the same even after the acquisition. The company will not be allowing ads in the app as they believe that it will not be a pleasant experience for the users. Considering the massive seven crore (70 million) users that it has in this country, WhatsApp may not want to give them an opportunity to consider its competitors.

November 6, 2014
WhatsApp User-Base Reaches 70 Million in India

There is absolutely no doubt that WhatsApp is one of the most popular messenger services all over the world. Recently in an event, WhatsApp’s Business Development head Neeraj Arora revealed that in India, the user base of the application has grown to 70 million active-users, which is over a 10th of its global users.

“We have 70 million active-users here who use the application at least once a month,” said Arora at the fifth annual INK Conference in Mumbai. He further added to his statement that the total user base for the company is 600 million, including the one bought by Facebook in a $19-billion deal earlier this year.

India is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp, a application which targets to connect billions. Arora stated that WhatsApp will continue to hold a stand-alone identity even after the Facebook acquisition and will not get merged with the social networking website.

The company also commented that with the team of just 80 people, WhatsApp is already getting benefitted through learnings from the social networking giant. Also, it could have been a pretty good deal if he would have paid some money to buy WhatsApp three years back, Arora stressed upon the fact that the company has grown a lot since then. That time, it would have been in “low tens of million” dollars. The user-base has exponentially grown to 600 million from the 30 million three years ago.

November 3, 2014
Facebook-Owned WhatsApp Lost Close to $200 Million in 2 Years

As a result of the official closing of Facebook’s acquisition of cross-platform instant messaging application WhatsApp, the first clear picture of WhatsApp’s financial results emerged. A Form 8-K/A filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that in 2014, WhatsApp lost $140 million and generated just $10 million in revenue. And in 2012 and 2013, the app lost a total of $192.8 million.

In the six months ending June 30, 2014, WhatsApp brought in $15.921 million in revenue but suffered a net loss of $232.5 million. However, $206.5 million of the net loss was for share-based compensation expenses and issuance of common stock below fair value. Its net cash used in operating expenses during the first half of 2014 was $13.5 million, which sounds much more reasonable.

“We’re the most atypical Silicon Valley company you’ll come across,” Brian Acton, a WhatsApp co-founder, once said in an interview. “We were founded by thirty-somethings, we focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast, we’ve been incognito almost all the time, we’re mobile first and we’re global first.”

Essentially, due to WhatsApp’s quickly rising valuation, it used share-based compensation to attract top talent. Eventually, the $22 billion acquisition by Facebook largely made the ‘expenses’ of issuing that stock moot. This is standard for growing companies hiring new talent, and shouldn’t convey that WhatsApp was burning money irresponsibly. $148 million is a lot to lose for a small company, but the company seems to have been doing it wisely. Fewer than $10 million was burned in 2013 in actual operating expenses.

Overall, Facebook broke down the money it spent on WhatsApp as $2.026 billion for the user base, $448 million for the brand, $288 million for technology, and $21 million for the rest. That left it to chalk up the $15.314 billion difference as “good will” aka the value “from future growth, from potential monetization opportunities, from strategic advantages provided in the mobile ecosystem from expansion of our mobile messaging offerings.”

October 29, 2014
Whatsapp’s New Voice Calling Feature May Arrive Sooner Than Expected

Whatsapp, the popular messaging app, has given a hard time to telecom operators by eating up their revenue. However, Whatsapp’s arsenal had been missing one big feature, Voice calling. Talks about the new voice calling feature on Whatsapp have been on since February. It all started when WhatsApp CEO, Jan Kuom, announced that the voice calling feature would be added to Android and iPhones first, followed by BlackBerry, Nokia and Microsoft platforms.

Now, it seems that the long-awaited feature will come to the app sooner than expected. A pop-up has been spotted on the app window that seeks user’s permission to use the microphone, hinting the voice-calling feature to be a part of their next update. The latest WhatsApp update was released for the iPhone on September 8. With it, WhatsApp added several features such as improved location sharing and fast camera access.

However, the release notes never mentioned about a pop-up, which requests access to the microphone every time the app is opened. The pop-up will only appear to those people who have not already allowed the app to access their device’s microphone.

WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app with over 600 million users. The messaging app was acquired by Facebook earlier this year in a deal worth $19 billion.

September 16, 2014
WhatsApp’s VOIP functionality for iOS Leaked in a Screenshot

During WhatsApp’s recent Facebook acquisition, CEO Jan Koum hinted that WhatsApp may get voice call functionality by the summer. This new leaked screenshot of the App’s upcoming update for iOS shows off those supposed calling capabilities, designed to work along with iOS 7’s design layout.

The camera button on the top also hints at video call functionality. WhatApp will allow free voice calls and video calls with your friends on your WhatsApp list over Wifi and Cellular.

It is also rumored that this functionality comes via Skype or using Skype’s voip technology as Facebook currently integrates Skype calling within its chat windows.

With this feature WhatsApp may become the single point of social networking that everyone has been looking for. Now if only they could work out their battery drain.

March 16, 2014
Facebook Acquires WhatsApp: Here is Everything You Would Like to Know

The big news for today is from Facebook, the company has agreed to acquire the most used instant messaging service all around the world. Facebook acquires WhatsApp for $19 Billion and the WhatsApp team will now work with Facebook.

With the mission of connecting people around the world, Facebook has taken another initiative to make that possible. “Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day” – Mark Zuckerberg

450 Million people across the world use the WhatsApp application out of which 70% are active every day. If facts are to be believed, the users to this application are growing(currently adding more than 1 million new registered users per day).

Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO, said, “WhatsApp’s extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide. We’re excited and honored to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world.”

WhatsApp as a brand will be maintained, its headquarters will still remain in Mountain View, CA. Jan Koum(WhatsApp co-founder and CEO) will join Facebook’s Board of Directors and WhatsApp’s core messaging product and Facebook’s existing Messenger app will continue to operate as standalone applications.

[toggles behavior=”toggle”]
[toggle title=”More Details”]Upon closing of the deal, all outstanding shares of WhatsApp capital stock and options to purchase WhatsApp capital stock will be cancelled in exchange for $4 billion in cash and 183,865,778 shares of Facebook Class A common stock (worth $12 billion based on the average closing price of the six trading days preceding February 18, 2014 of $65.2650 per share). In addition, upon closing, Facebook will grant 45,966,444 restricted stock units to WhatsApp employees (worth $3 billion based on the average closing price of the six trading days preceding February 18, 2014 of $65.2650 per share). As of February 17, 2014, Facebook had 2,551,654,996 Class A and B shares outstanding plus approximately 139 million dilutive securities primarily consisting of unvested RSUs. The Class A common stock and RSUs issued to WhatsApp shareholders and employees upon closing will represent 7.9% of Facebook shares based on current shares and RSUs outstanding. [/toggle]
[/toggles]

Why did Facebook Acquire WhatsApp ?

WhatsApp as an application has more than 315 Million active users each day. Facts say that the number of messages sent through WhatsApp is approximately the same as the total number of SMS traffic throughout the world. Not only here in India, but in countries like Brazil, Mexico and South Africa; WhatsApp is the most used messaging service.

WhatsApp team’s intentions of keeping the application ad free still remains, so we will have to see what change does Facebook brings to this app for generating revenue. For now, WhatsApp’s core messaging product and Facebook’s existing Messenger app will continue to operate as standalone applications

February 20, 2014
WhatsApp Messenger Gets The iOS 7 Friendly Update

WhatsApp is the most used messaging app throughout all platforms. Whether it is iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian or Windows Phone, this app runs on all platforms.

Following other applications to update according to the iOS 7, WhatsApp messenger also gets the much needed update. This new update is late, but it comes with some required changes.

The new interface is simpler, and the new version introduces a broadcast lists. The latest update also improves location sharing with a 3D map, and the photo clickers can crop images and see larger pictures(thumbnails). The new update also allows you to manage your blocked contacts easily.

[App Store]

December 3, 2013
Express Yourself with Doodles, Doodly Doo

Messaging apps have become very popular, specifically applications like WhatsApp. These apps allows one to send and receive not only text messages but also images, videos, locations, audio the recent feature and some songs as well.

Making up doodles or expressing your self was first spread out by the Samsung’s Note series, using that one could easily sketch anything down and share it seamlessly. But the default S note is limited to certain things only.

However, for doodling its not necessary that you would need a stylus, as not all phones supports one. We are talking about the app that can help you to express your opinion in a different way, the app is called ‘Doodly Doo’.

Doodly Doo is an app that allows you to doodle anything that you imagine or to take the artist out of you. You can simply draw anything on the app, there are many brush size options along with a lot of color options. You can also take inputs from the camera, gallery, maps, google images and can also add text, rage faces, smileys and greetings to make your ideas of sketching better.

You can simply use the map option to direct someone where you exactly are, and give your personal message on it. And the greeting option shows up greetings for occasions like Happy birthday, Anniversary and ‘Alot’ more.

The app plays back the doodle on the receiver’s screen exactly the same way it is drawn. Users can also post these doodles to their Facebook, WhatsApp and even send links to watch these doodles to the ones who don’t use this app through SMS.

[youtube id=”pqt6UnKXCbU” width=”100%” height=”300px”]

September 14, 2013
WhatsApp For iOS Reverts To Subscription Model, Adds iCloud Backup, Multi-Photo Sharing

The enormously successful mobile chat tool WhatsApp, which Apple recently listed as the 6th most popular paid app of all time, has received some major updates today.

Today, the company has issued an update with a few nice features, and have quietly removed the 99c / Rs. 60 barrier to entry, reverting to an annual subscription model of the same amount.

The paid app business model is really a vestige of an older era where developers would sell their work up-front. But over time, many paid apps have made the switch toward going free with paid features. Games really triggered this wave, but other high-usage apps like messaging have gone for a freemium strategy.

The new version also adds iCloud message backup, which allows synchronization of chat states between devices and backup and restoration of content after logging out of changing devices.

The company has also added third-party URL schemes, which allows various apps to share data to WhatsApp and vice versa, and users can now send multiple messages to an individual or group (much needed!).

While this isn’t the visual overhaul many users were hoping for, it’s a great update nonetheless.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular cross platform messaging services out there. It recently announced that the service has over 250 million monthly active users, not to mention the fact that WhatsApp handles more than 27 billion messages every single day.

July 17, 2013
WhatsApp Yearly Subscription Model To Come To iOS In 2013

Users of Apple’s iOS platform who are utilizing popular instant messaging application WhatsApp could be looking at subscription fees headed there way this year if reports prove true.

WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum recently revealed in his statement to a Dutch journalist Alexander Klopping that the service will be introducing annual paid subscriptions to its iOS app this year. Once it takes effect, users will have to pay annually to use the app instead of paying a single download fee at the outset. The new subscription model will only apply to new users, and not to existing users.

Currently, one of the perks to owning iOS is that WhatsApp for iOS is a onetime payment of $0.99. Other platforms like Blackberry, Windows Phone and Android get to download the app for free, but after a year they are expected to pay $0.99 in subscription fees every year. It’s not a very huge fee but ultimately it could cost more than its iOS counterpart.

Koum hasn’t identified an exact date on when the subscriptions would begin, nor did he clarify much on why WhatsApp decided to change its pricing model, although a likely cause could be increased competition with the likes of LINE, Kik Messenger, and KakaoTalk, along with a number of other apps, most of which have exceeded 100 million users total with the exception of KakaoTalk, who had 57 million registered users as of August 2012, and is likely coming close to the 100 million mark.

For those waiting on a desktop version of WhatsApp to be used with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Mac devices, Koum revealed that, unfortunately, a desktop version is not in the pipeline:

“We get that question asked a lot. We feel strongly that the world is moving to mobile and … we want to be mobile-only. Your phone is with you all the time, and desktop is to many becoming a secondary experience. … our answer is no, not anytime soon.”

March 18, 2013
WhatsApp For Blackberry 10 Confirmed For March

Back in December of 2012, it was revealed that WhatsApp had no immediate plans to release an app for Blackberry 10. This was kind of a bummer because BBM only allowed for texting between Blackberry devices, while WhatsApp allowed for communication between multiple platforms.

Now the good news is that according to a tweet by Neeraj Arora regarding WhatsApp, it looks like there will be a native Blackberry 10 app and it will be arriving in March which is next week.

It is very clear that BlackBerry aims at no less than an attempt to fairly command a premium price for its flagship device, the BlackBerry Z10. But for that to succeed, the application platform still needs to be worked on. BlackBerry had proudly played up the fact that it had 70,000 apps ready at the time of the BB10 launch, but quite a few popular apps are still missing in action.

BlackBerry recently launched its Z10 smartphone in India for Rs. 43, 990 and has been facing a lot of flak due to the steep price for their flagship device.

WhatsApp, is a cross platform instant messaging app, and is very popular with a wide demographic of users. The network reported that 10 billion messages were sent on its network in one day, back in August 2012. The application is currently available on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS7 and prior, Symbian and even on Nokia S40 Asha phones.

February 26, 2013
New WhatsApp Messenger Beta Released For Android, Updated With Holo-Based Interface

We’re sure that many of you guys use the WhatsApp messenger on your Android device, but if you have felt that WhatsApp’s interface on your Android device is starting to get a bit stale, you might be pleased to learn that an update could be heading your way soon.

A new beta has been released of WhatsApp Messenger for Android featuring, among other things, a new, Holo-style theme much better suited to the general look and feel of Android in general. The app has, hitherto, looked like a straight port of its iOS cousin, but with the security issues of yesteryear now having been resolved with WhatsApp Messenger for Android, the developers behind the popular app can now focus on aesthetics and features.

As well as the beautiful Holo theme, it also looks as though the beta also contains new expandable notifications, making the general functionality of the app in general just that little bit more streamlined. Expandable notifications make everything seem tidier and more natural, and with WhatsApp always seeming a prime candidate for the feature, it’s good to see the WhatsApp team finally implement it.

The update should be rolling out to the Play Store in the coming days or weeks (WhatsApp has not publicized the update yet) but it’s available to download from the company’s website.

As ever, the trial period for WhatsApp Messenger lasts for a year, with an annual service charge of $0.99 thereafter. If you have already paid, you will not be charged again to use the beta.

You can grab the update by heading over toWhatsApp.com/Android

[Redmond Pie]

February 15, 2013
WhatsApp Pushed Record 18 Billion Messages On December 31st

WhatsApp has a message for its users — a lot of them.

The mobile messaging service announced today that it set a WhatsApp record on New Year’s Eve, processing 18 billion messages on the last day of the year. The company said it delivered 7 billion inbound messages and 11 billion outbound messages, surpassing its previous record of 10 billion messages processed in one day back in August.

In comparison, Apple revealed in October that its iMessage text service had delivered about 300 billion texts sent by iOS users during the previous 12 months — an average of less than a billion a day.

WhatsApp is an ad-free, paid service intended to replace your text messaging plan. Generally it works out cheaper, particularly when sending messages overseas, because it uses WiFi or mobile networks to carry texts instead.

It’s available for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Phone and Nokia phones.

Its success hasn’t gone unnoticed – according to rumours published last year by Techcrunch and others WhatsApp might still be facing a potential acquisition by Facebook.

WhatsApp denies that Facebook has made an attempt to buy the service, but with this kind of success it can’t be out of the question that several companies would be sizing up a potential takeover.

January 4, 2013
Hurry! WhatsApp Free In App Store For Limited Period Of Time!

The wildly popular message client known as WhatsApp is now free for all to download on iOS. This mobile application usually goes for 99 cent, but for a limited time, users will get it free of charge. WhatsApp is a cool way for users to avoid SMS fees in mobile phone plans, as it lets users send messages to other members of the service over the internet.

Although the app is free for now to those rocking an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, folks on Android will continue to get it free, with a $0.99 yearly fee kicking in after the first 12 months.

A few things to note before handing you the download link. On iOS, WhatsApp is compatible only with the iPhone because it’s a telephony application that uses your phone number to let other people reach you. In other words, iPad and iPod touch devices are out.

It requires iOS 4.3 or later and has been recently optimized for the iPhone 5. It works with pretty much all carriers and networks but some carrier limitations may apply in certain territories.

WhatsApp supports English, Arabic, Bokmål, Norwegian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

December 21, 2012