[Handsome Creepy Eel]

It's probably going to end up like Microsoft: it buys stuff all around, then that stuff rapidly loses value and it's left with almost nothing. Think their venture with Nokia. I have a feeling the same mechanism is at work here. People who are on WhatsApp are there precisely because they prefer it to Facebook.

[Steve9]

I wouldn't underestimate Zucks' business vision. 5 years from now billions of new emerging market users will be able to purchase cheaper smart phones and could be using WhatsApp - checkout http://www.internet.org

Thats when they can start to monetize it.

[presidentcarter]

(02-19-2014 08:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

Whatsapp is crucial for international travel game.

Exactly. I've started tearing it up on Mamba. After a few lines of chatting there, I usually say something like "do you have whatsapp? I hate the Mamba messenger". Works just about every time and girls seem more open to it than "can I get your phone number?"...even though it's the exact same .

Also, most people pay per text sent in Russia (I pay 1.6 rubles or so), so whatsapp is the primary means of communication.

I love it because all you need is their number. I can get a number at a club and the next day check my whatsapp. Usually she's there and has a picture of her. I can also see when they last opened whatsapp, read my message, and when they are typing.

I seriously hope Zuck doesn't fix what's not broken.

[UnW]

and i thought instagram for 1bill was exxy

[Candlejack]

Zuckface will be buying it on behalf of his buddies at the CIA and NSA. He will share all of the keyword data with big companies and probably masturbate over sexualised conversations. He will probably also have a secret folder where he will keep all of the nude photos and videos that are sent over Whatsapp and Whatsapp privacy will be virtually zero, like facebook privacy is.

[villageindian]

(02-20-2014 02:41 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

It's probably going to end up like Microsoft: it buys stuff all around, then that stuff rapidly loses value and it's left with almost nothing. Think their venture with Nokia. I have a feeling the same mechanism is at work here. People who are on WhatsApp are there precisely because they prefer it to Facebook.

But isnt that the way forward for FB (or let alone other companies who cannot achieve astronomical growth going forward)? Given that most of its active users are older and teens avoiding FB preferring quicker modes of communication (like Whatsapp), their growth is severely affected. Their only mode of growth is through acquisitions, which is what they have done now.

And they have gone for the biggest one of them all. I wouldnt be surprised a year from now, another social media app becomes more popular and FB/Google tries to buy it once it reaches popularity.

Its a perpetual cycle (and fashionable) in recent times for new stuff to be acquired by old and completely waylaying their core users. It's as if there is no concept of continuing to operate as a small company at all. It's the effect of VC money and funding effecting the whole start up craze.

[monster]

ZeroHedge has some erudite commentary:

Quote:

America Online President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman said: "Acquiring ICQ fits perfectly into our multiple-brand strategy. Like CompuServe, ICQ substantially broadens our reach in important markets not served by AOL-branded products. In addition to its international reach, ICQ has tremendous appeal among young, technically sophisticated Web users and there is remarkably little overlap with AOL."

- June 8, 1998, when AOL announced it paid $287 million (and another $120 million contingent) to acquire ICQ's 12 million users.

FB's stock tanked after the announced acquisition. The shareholders know its foolish.

ZH then goes on to comment on the private tech bubble going on in M&A which is reaching epic proportions.

[DJ-Matt]

(02-20-2014 02:17 AM)Teddykgb Wrote:  

I think it must be free at first because I've been using for the past 6 months and never paid anything. Maybe the first year free?

Depends on the platform, in the Android store the app itself is free, but after 1 year you gotta pay 99 cents. On the Apple store it's 99 cents for the app.

[Roosh]

(02-20-2014 09:58 AM)monster Wrote:  

ZeroHedge has some erudite commentary:

Quote:

America Online President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman said: "Acquiring ICQ fits perfectly into our multiple-brand strategy. Like CompuServe, ICQ substantially broadens our reach in important markets not served by AOL-branded products. In addition to its international reach, ICQ has tremendous appeal among young, technically sophisticated Web users and there is remarkably little overlap with AOL."

- June 8, 1998, when AOL announced it paid $287 million (and another $120 million contingent) to acquire ICQ's 12 million users.

FB's stock tanked after the announced acquisition. The shareholders know its foolish.

ZH then goes on to comment on the private tech bubble going on in M&A which is reaching epic proportions.

It's helpful to provide the link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-19...tock-tanks

[Mike5055]

Gotta love how no one learned anything from the dot com bubble.

[RockHard]

Whether or not this is a good move by FB, there's an interesting story behind the founders. In 2009, they were laid off from Yahoo!. One of the guys interviewed at Twitter and Facebook and was turned down by both. So he joined up with his buddy who had an idea for a messaging app.

Yesterday, FB paid him & his partner $16 billion. Yeah, it's not all his, but I read they have 50 employees. I'm not sure how much VC they took. Whatever, the guy who got rejected by 2 of the biggest names in tech officially has gotten his "fuck you money".

If that's not a lesson about hustle and perseverance, I don't know what is. Don't fucking give up, and don't let anybody define you.

[scorpion]

(02-20-2014 10:47 AM)Mike5055 Wrote:  

Gotta love how no one learned anything from the dot com bubble.

In a few years people will look back on this and be even more incredulous.

With the first tech bubble (the so-called "New Paradigm") there was a widely held belief that the internet would fundamentally change society and business, and therefore the huge valuations of tech stocks were warranted. The first assumption turned out to be true, but the second did not hold up. The internet did fundamentally change everything, but even for all of its reach, at the end of the day if a company can't make a lot of money, it simply can't be worth a lot of money. This holds true whether the company is a cutting edge technology firm or one that manufactures toilet paper. The internet is not some kind of magic conjuring stone that allows companies to pull tens of billions of dollars out of thin air. Without strong revenues a company cannot long sustain a stratospheric valuation. To believe otherwise is the very definition of an investment bubble.

And so as I said, in a few years people will look back with incredulity at these valuations for companies that are nothing more than glorified email and text messaging platforms, and which only exist to harvest users' personal data. At least with the first tech bubble there was a compelling case to be made that the internet was going to be revolutionary (which was true), but the same simply can't be said for social media. It's clearly a fad, and one that people are already beginning to get sick of, especially given how the owners of these sites/apps are shamelessly embracing the business model of selling their users' personal information to advertisers (and the government). The whole thing is completely insane.

[Stun]

According to the Zerohedge article (linked above) FB paid roughly $50/user for Whatsapp whereas Rakuten paid $3/user for Viber, for a similar # of users. 320 mil *active* users on Whatsapp, 300 mil users on Viber.

[Justice Beaver]

(02-20-2014 06:16 AM)presidentcarter Wrote:  

(02-19-2014 08:26 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

Whatsapp is crucial for international travel game.

I seriously hope Zuck doesn't fix what's not broken.

Me too. I think it's fine as it is, if they had to do any major changes in the future I wonder what it would be? Maybe after the free year, it's optional or mandatory to open up a Facebook account? Phone number automatically linked to Facebook? hmm..

[Hencredible Casanova]

The Whatsapp founder has a hell of a rags to riches story. Urkainian Jewish background. Grew up poor there and immigrated to California, his family lived on food stamps. Can't knock him for taking the windfall.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-20...naire.html

Quote:

For Koum, 38, the windfall would stand in stark contrast to his years as a teenager, when his family relied on food stamps after emigrating from Ukraine. The experience of living in a country where phone lines were often tapped, instilled the importance of privacy in him, said Jim Goetz, a partner with Sequoia Capital Ltd., WhatsApp’s lone venture capital investor.

[Steve9]

(02-20-2014 09:58 AM)monster Wrote:  

FB's stock tanked after the announced acquisition. The shareholders know its foolish.

Actually, Facebook stock is up 1.3% so far today.

[Teedub]

I really like whatsapp, I'd pay $10 a year for it. However, something else cheaper would take its place so that won't happen. It's about $2 I think annually, and obviously I'd pay that.

I pay more than that a month in donations to RoK!

[monster]

(02-20-2014 01:22 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

The Whatsapp founder has a hell of a rags to riches story. Urkainian Jewish background. Grew up poor there and immigrated to California, his family lived on food stamps. Can't knock him for taking the windfall.

Absolutely, he's the smart one. FB got suckered, or is it zuckered?

More from ZH:

Quote:

For those asking, Whatspp, a company most have never heard off, now has a greater enterprise value than:

Motorola Solutions;
Starwood Hotels;
Alliance Data;
Ameren;
Intuitive Surgical;
Beam;
Kohls'
Coca-Cola Enterprises
Wisconsin Energy;
Broadcom;
Ross Stores;
Southwest Airlines;
Tyson Foods

[Sourcecode]

(02-20-2014 02:19 PM)Steve9 Wrote:  

(02-20-2014 09:58 AM)monster Wrote:  

FB's stock tanked after the announced acquisition. The shareholders know its foolish.

Actually, Facebook stock is up 1.3% so far today.

Spoke too soon. it closed at 2.3

Its actually up over 8 percent this week

[Sp5]

By this measure, the cumulative value of Line "stickers" is probably $30 billion. WhatsApp just seems like another messaging app to me - like Line, WeChat, Tango, etc.

[paninaro]

I think FB had to acquire one of these messaging apps, because their own app was not gaining traction, especially outside the US. Growth in use of messaging apps is exploding, because of continued growth of smartphones, and because mobile carriers got greedy and charged too much for text messages (SMSes) even though it basically cost them nothing. (SMSes use the control channel of the mobile network.. basically riding on existing bandwidth.)

In the end, communication is a key human need, by various methods, and so I don't see the ability to communicate in text format with your friends going out of style any time soon. Sure, the apps used to do it may change, but not the way it's done.

So FB had just a few companies to choose from with a big userbase, particularly abroad, like Viber, Line, WeChat, etc. They probably made some offers to some of those companies, too. The best fit from a company culture and logistics standpoint was WhatsApp -- started by Silicon Valley people, located nearby, funded by VCs they know, etc.

FB's balance sheet is not bad -- about $13 billion in current assets (cash and similar) as of the end of 2013. This acqusition was mostly in stock, so there's not a big cost to operational risk by doing it.

I'm not sure I'd do the same deal if I was Zuck, but I do see why they did it.

[Hotwheels]

I don't have Whatsapp, so I'm curious if the current setup is conducive to ads?

FB ads are not ideal currently on mobile and has been a sticking point for them. Considering more and more web traffic is going mobile this is a big issue.

[HD668B]

(02-19-2014 08:01 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  

I don't the buzz about What'sApp. With the new FB messenger, you are sending texts to your friends internationally, for FREE, for however long, not just the first year...Can someone explain to me why this is so popular? Seems to be big in non-US countries. I know it is HUGE amongst my cousins in India.

No logins or passwords. You are identified by your mobile number. Once you are connected, you know who else has also installed whatsapp straight from your normal phone number contactlist.

[Sp5]

(02-22-2014 03:08 AM)LÉtranger Wrote:  

No logins or passwords. You are identified by your mobile number. Once you are connected, you know who else has also installed whatsapp straight from your normal phone number contactlist.

this is true of Line, Tango and WeChat, too.

[worldwidetraveler]

(02-20-2014 01:22 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

The Whatsapp founder has a hell of a rags to riches story. Urkainian Jewish background. Grew up poor there and immigrated to California, his family lived on food stamps. Can't knock him for taking the windfall.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-20...naire.html

Quote:

For Koum, 38, the windfall would stand in stark contrast to his years as a teenager, when his family relied on food stamps after emigrating from Ukraine. The experience of living in a country where phone lines were often tapped, instilled the importance of privacy in him, said Jim Goetz, a partner with Sequoia Capital Ltd., WhatsApp’s lone venture capital investor.

Yeah, it's a great story. According to some here the American dream is dead and then you read something like this and see it first hand. I am sure being an immigrant helped.