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A lot of people in this thread seem to be trying to pick apart Whatsapp's business model, but I can't seem to find anything to criticize. 1) Creating a new ide
by ansy 15y ago
A lot of people in this thread seem to be trying to pick apart Whatsapp's business model, but I can't seem to find anything to criticize.
1) Creating a new identity and communicating it to people is a chore. Whatsapp just uses your existing email and phone number.
2) Creating a new list of contacts is a chore. Whatsapp just uses your existing contact list of emails and phone numbers.
3) At least on iOS, signing in to a service and managing session timeouts is passé. With Whatsapp you install it, run it once, and the Push Notification API handles the persistent connection and receiving messages without ever having to launch the app again. Or without even making sure it's running.
4) iMessage and BBM do the same thing, but those are nonstarters in a multi platform world. Neither service is going to go multi platform any time soon if ever.
Whatsapp is the Dropbox of messaging. Everything else just looks outdated and clunky in comparison.
That said, I'm really disappointed in Google. Google is positioning GTalk as a competitive advantage for Android. There is no reason there shouldn't be official GTalk clients on every platform. GTalk on iOS would be more popular than all of Google's other iOS apps combined.
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoGood analysis, I think you're right. Not having to sign into a service is a great way to get people to at least try it out; I've noticed some others start-ups doing this (Staticloud comes to mind) and I hope it's a trend that continues. Google needs to consolidate it's messaging offering. Right now it has Google Talk, Google Voice, Google+ Huddles, and up until a few months ago, Disco.
- joelhaasnoot 15y agoGTalk on Android just plain doesnt work for most on-the-go conversations. The latency is horendous and often I "go offline", and the client crashes. Might be due to my phone, but still, WhatsApp is optimized for wireless radios. The latency can be bad when WhatsApp is on Wifi too, but it generally works great when on (3)G.