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    $19 billion!

    Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp (huh?)

    Which now has a monetary value greater than the world's music industry, or the GDP of Jamaica.

    I become more convinced everyday that I wasn't made for this world

    #2
    $19 billion!

    What is is WhatsApp?

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      #3
      $19 billion!

      Exactly.

      It's a mobile message system. The fact that something I — and apparently many others — had never heard of until it was sold for an amount of cash I can't even begin to conceptualise, is what I can't get my head around.

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        #4
        $19 billion!

        What's wrong with the messaging systems we have?

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          #5
          $19 billion!

          For the benefit of the google-impaired:

          WhatsApp wrote: WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.
          It's a net neutrality play.

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            #6
            $19 billion!

            A company with 55 employees which has something like half a billion customers (and is apparently worth $19bn). This more than ever suggests that unless we start thinking about some new way of conceptualising the economy, we're totally fucked. Eventually the 1% are going to realise that they actually need the 99% to have some disposable income in order to be consumers and keep the whole thing afloat.

            Or put another way, whereas in the past employment was the way of ensuring a modicum of wealth distribution, in the future it will need to be something else (it seems)

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              #7
              $19 billion!

              Reed John wrote: What's wrong with the messaging systems we have?
              WhatsApp is basically a text-messaging replacement with better support for groups, and it's as good as free (as in: I haven't paid a penny yet, and I'm using it for more than a year now).

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                #8
                $19 billion!

                I use WhatsApp; I think I paid about €1 once, to continue using it. It's very useful, although there are several competing services.

                But, of course, a platform-agnostic messaging service based on your data plan (not your SMS tariff) is a good thing. (So much so, I think my current mobile tariff has unlimited SMS, as the carriers know that there's little profit to be made from SMS anymore).

                I've no idea why they paid so much. One commentator reckoned the value was in the enormous database of phone numbers and metadata.

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                  #9
                  $19 billion!

                  Never heard of it. Doesn't sound like anything I'd ever need. Bloody ridiculous.

                  Now, if somebody invented a service that guaranteed me a decent ****ing signal for my smartphone around Cambridge (you know, strong enough to enable me to load a typical BBC website page in less than about two whole ****ing minutes or indeed at all in many locations) then I'd be willing to do the kind of retail spending on that service that'd justify a business value of 19 billion dollars if you scale it up for user numbers. That's my consumer view of modern comms tech: ever more fucking sophisticated and pointless bells and whistles, always massive gaps in the basic delivery.

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                    #10
                    $19 billion!

                    It's massively overpriced. Dotcom bubble again, isn't it?
                    Zuckerberg reckons Whatsapp will top a billion users within a year or so, and presumably will keep growing and be bigger than Facebook.
                    I've never used it myself though. I can only assume the real value, like Facebook, is in all the user data you get. They're certainly not going to recoup their $19 billion by charging for the service, because someone will come up with an alternative freebie, and they'll lose all their users. This assumes though that Zuckerberg's rather optimistic predictions come true.
                    I haven't been keeping tabs on the market, but if I owned shares in Facebook, I'd be looking at divesting myself of them about now.

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                      #11
                      $19 billion!

                      I wonder if Facebook is heading for a collapse in advertising revenue when advertisers start to get less keen to pay FB for ad placement. I can't be the only FB user who wouldn't even dream of becoming a paying customer of any of the businesses whose adverts appear alongside the FB content when I'm logged on.

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                        #12
                        $19 billion!

                        This is basically Zuckerberg's insurance policy for if/when the kids start regarding Facebook as uncool and ditch it for the next new thing. Mind you, the price he has paid for WhatsApp values each of its users at about 40 quid.

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                          #13
                          $19 billion!

                          I wonder if the structure of the telecoms market gives rise to some inherent game theory dynamic which drives players to pay obviously and massively over the odds for some things.

                          I've wondered that ever since I got familiar many years ago in my old job with the details of the UK's 3G spectrum auction, where the five UK 3G bidders between them paid HM Government a total of approx £20 billion (NB that's sterling) for their shares of the UK 3G spectrum. Assuming around 20 million UK 3G customers (which seems reasonable after allowing for the aged, the very young, the dirt poor and the technophobic), that would be a value of £1,000 per customer, which was manifestly insane as a net present value of any remotely realistic future profit projection from selling to such customers. But they all felt driven to bid because they didn't dare not be in that market rather than overpay by billions, possibly for some very good reasons.

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                            #14
                            $19 billion!

                            Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: I wonder if Facebook is heading for a collapse in advertising revenue when advertisers start to get less keen to pay FB for ad placement. I can't be the only FB user who wouldn't even dream of becoming a paying customer of any of the businesses whose adverts appear alongside the FB content when I'm logged on.
                            Facebook's advertising revenue is growing, even on mobile.

                            Online advertising is interesting—it's like pornography. No one admits to clicking on it, or watching it, but it mysteriously generates revenue … odd that.

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                              #15
                              $19 billion!

                              Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: I wonder if the structure of the telecoms market gives rise to some inherent game theory dynamic which drives players to pay obviously and massively over the odds for some things.
                              Tricky … the telcos were correct in seeing that fast mobile internet would be an important thing; problem was that it only became practical about ten years later.

                              People forget the first iPhone was running on EDGE, which was 2G. And that appeared in 2007 (the spectrum auction was way back in 2000).

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                                #16
                                $19 billion!

                                Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: I can't be the only FB user who wouldn't even dream of becoming a paying customer of any of the businesses whose adverts appear alongside the FB content when I'm logged on.
                                My only knowledge of this sort of thing is a pet shop, a one-woman band set-up not too far from me, which has paid to advertise on Facebook. She told me it has been massively worthwhile in terms of increasing the number of likes and getting updates onto people's timelines, which in turn encourages them to engage with the shop.

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                                  #17
                                  $19 billion!

                                  Those ads on FB have a subliminal effect, so even if you don't directly click on the ad itself, it has implanted the idea in your brain. And, because they know what you've been reading and searching for, they have a pretty good idea of the types of products you'll be buying in future.

                                  I'm always annoyed when I buy something online and then five minutes later, an ad for it shows up on FB (sometimes for a cheaper price than what I had just paid---grrrr!).

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                                    #18
                                    $19 billion!

                                    I don't have a smartphone, but I've heard of Whatsapp. It's a very good idea, basically doing to SMS messaging what Skype did to long-distance calling.

                                    If it replaces SMS and becomes the de facto text messaging platform then it may well be worth billions, who knows. But Facebook will most likely do their best to fuck it up. All these companies seem to go to shit when they get too big. Google has been going that way lately too, turning into a new Microsoft.

                                    edit: I just read that 16 billion of the 19 billion is in Facebook shares. That's not real money, is it...

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                                      #19
                                      $19 billion!

                                      No, it's not.

                                      But still, $3B is still a lot of damn money.

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                                        #20
                                        $19 billion!

                                        Bryaniek wrote: But Facebook will most likely do their best to fuck it up. All these companies seem to go to shit when they get too big. Google has been going that way lately too, turning into a new Microsoft.
                                        No, it's because most users inhabit a bizarre fantasy land where they expect services without having to pay for them or be confronted with adverts.

                                        In fact, many of these startups just carry on spending venture capital money regardless, in the sole hope that they will be bought by the likes of Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. Few of them begin with a profitable business model in the first place.

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                                          #21
                                          $19 billion!

                                          How is WhatsApp different from Kik or Facebook's own message service, which they split off into a separate app?

                                          I find it amusing that they paid billions for something that seems like it's trying to sound like the old Budweiser commercials. Hip!

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                                            #22
                                            $19 billion!

                                            Incandenza wrote: How is WhatsApp different from Kik or Facebook's own message service, which they split off into a separate app?
                                            It isn't. It's just the one everyone seems to be using.

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                                              #23
                                              $19 billion!

                                              And next week or next month, there will be a new thing that people are using.

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                                                #24
                                                $19 billion!

                                                Stumpy Pepys wrote:
                                                Originally posted by Bryaniek
                                                But Facebook will most likely do their best to fuck it up. All these companies seem to go to shit when they get too big. Google has been going that way lately too, turning into a new Microsoft.
                                                No, it's because most users inhabit a bizarre fantasy land where they expect services without having to pay for them or be confronted with adverts.
                                                Huh? I don't think making a profit is a problem for Google. Their turnover last year was $60bn, with a net profit of $14bn. They are making a total balls of their user interface, however, due to too many levels of management (what helped kill Microsoft) and total arrogance (we got to the top, ergo any decisions we make must be correct).

                                                I do run a job listings .com website myself so I know what you mean about users living in a fantasy land. Friends of mine proudly proclaimed that they use ad block so they don't have to see the ads on my website. I have one fucking banner ad that is static and in a totally unintrusive place. How do these people expect everything to be free?

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                                                  #25
                                                  $19 billion!

                                                  Femme Folle wrote: And next week or next month, there will be a new thing that people are using.
                                                  Most likely after Facebook have done their best to ruin WhatsApp. Look at what Microsoft have been doing to Skype.

                                                  Comment

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