Sources tell TechCrunch that social media giant Facebook is interested in buying popular mobile chat program WhatsApp.
Mark Zuckerberg believes that the future of Facebook is in mobile and its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app Instagram proves that the social network is serious in going down that path. Now there are news circulating that Facebook is in talks to buy WhatsApp to further improve its presence in cross-platform mobile messaging.
So far there’s no information regarding price range and how Facebook will utilize the messaging platform if ever it pushes through with the acquisition.
WhatsApp is an ad-free smartphone messaging app that works on Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, and Windows Phone. Earlier this year it reported on its blog that it was sending over a billion messages a day. “That is 41,666,667 messages an hour, 694,444 messages a minute, and 11,574 messages a second.”
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Not sure how I should react to this, but if it’s going to improve WhatsApp’s security lapses, then by all means, let FB acquire it. I use WA a lot to contact my friends abroad. What I like most about it is that it is compatible in almost all smartphones OSs (even Symbian!).
AFAIK, it is not free for iOS. That’s why Viber is more popular among iPhone users.
All I know it that facebook messenger would drop it’s account requirement so even if you don’t have facebook, you can still access it. It’ll be like Whatsapp. Update will start with android followed by ios.
sources:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/4/3725498/facebook-messenger-account-requirement-sms-whatsapp-bbm
http://blog.gsmarena.com/facebook-messenger-finally-finds-its-true-calling-wants-to-be-the-all-in-one-messenger-hub/