5 ms·
Don't feel bad; no one really uses them in the US (except us foreigners to communicate with friends and family abroad). They are the de-facto messaging service
by gms 13y ago
Don't feel bad; no one really uses them in the US (except us foreigners to communicate with friends and family abroad).
They are the de-facto messaging service in the rest of the world (except for China).
- gamegoblin 13y agoDefinitely. None of my US friends have heard of or use it, but I have a ton of friends abroad and it's the only way we stay in touch.
- dba7dba 13y agoNot true. KakaoTalk is big in S Korea. LINE is big in Japan. Quick check shows of 300 million registered LINE users and 50 million are in Japan.
- sentenza 13y agoAnd Orkut was number one in Brasil, but in the end, the network effect doesn't care for cultural borders (with the exception of the Great Firewall).
- tostitos1979 13y agoMy wife uses Kakao and she got me on it too. The app works well and it is cute. I thought it was hilarious how they monetize with stickers. Then, I realized ... holy sh*t ... this is worth a billion!
- dba7dba 13y agoKakaoTalk has more profit than WhatsApp per user I think. Had KakaoTalk been an American company, it would make more and might have been snapped up by someone bigger already...
- kayoone 13y agoim curious, what do americans use instead?
- dba7dba 13y agosame old texting.
- kayoone 13y agointeresting, i suppose its free? because it isn't here in germany which is why whatsapp is massively popular.
- jcdavis 13y agoYep. Most of the new plans the carriers in the US have rolled out recently have unlimited minutes + texting as standard, and then charge extra based on data limits. Not exactly cheap mind you, but that's how its structured. Even my cheapo $30/mo T-mobile prepaid includes unlimited texting.
- dba7dba 13y ago@kayoone No it's NOT free. US is just slow picking up new tech. It wasn't too long ago when Verizon was charging $10/month for 100 or 500 texts a month, with MASSIVE over the limit usage fee. The smart/young ones alternative but generally most don't care. And while most complain about paying $ for service that may not get used, they continue to pay, because they have the $.
- gms 13y agoEither regular text messaging or Apple's iMessage (iPhones are most popular in the US). My sense is that they don't really do group chats (a heavily used feature of WhatsApp).
- RandallBrown 13y agoWe (my friends and I) use group messaging heavily and none of us use WhatsApp. MMS supports group messaging just fine and lots of my friends have iPhones so iMessage works just fine there. We do pay more than $1 per year for unlimited text messages but I don't know anyone that doesn't get unlimited text messaging these days.
- Silhouette 13y agoThey are the de-facto messaging service in the rest of the world (except for China). FWIW, I'm in the UK, and I'm not aware of anyone who uses it here, either. I too have heard the name mentioned once or twice in the past, usually for undesirable reasons related to things like security or privacy. Even looking them up today, I don't quite see the attraction: what is the USP here?
- qqg3 13y agoBullshit, I'm in the UK, everybody I know uses WhatsApp.
- to3m 13y agoRubbish! I'm in the UK, and I've never even heard of WhatsApp.
- chockablock 13y agoWell clearly the user who called 'rubbish!' is the true brit ;)
- sentenza 13y agoAre you over 30? Seriously, I went to sit in with a few University freshmen recently here in Germany and they all used it. (They didn't know the Back to the Future movies, though!)
- 0d0d0fsd0 13y agoI'm from the UK, age 18 and never heard of WhatsApp outside of HN.
- to3m 13y agoI am over 30, yes. But I was talking to a former colleague who is EVEN OLDER THAN ME - over forty, in fact! - and he was saying he has used WhatsApp. Has been using it for a while, in fact. So, it looks like my age isn't to blame here - I am just hopelessly behind the times. (He said he was going to stop though, now that Facebook have bought it. I pointed out that due to his age, Facebook probably won't care.)