4 ms·

I thought it was the de facto messaging app across the world? Is there any particular reason why it is not used much in US?

zippergz 13y ago
I can only speak for myself, but in the US I have never seen any need for it. I text or iMessage with my friends, and while I have had WhatsApp installed for a long time, I've never found something it does better for me. If I needed to communicate with people I couldn't text with, or if I were paying per text, it would probably be more compelling.
- molmalo 13y ago
  Well, to give you an example, here in Argentina, almost everyone in my phone's contact list uses WhatsApp. Here, the fact that you pay per message is a big incentive. But there are other advantages, like instant delivery, being sure that the message was received (double-check), better feedback ('X is online' when using the app, 'Last seen at 09:22', X is writing...), media sharing, groups, etc. simple things that help a lot. Also, it works both on iPhone and Android...
  - neves 13y ago
    In Brazil, sometimes a SMS message takes hours to arrive. My bank sometimes send a validation code by SMS, but I can't use it because it expires before arriving.
nolok 13y ago
Some countries use Line rather than WhatsApp
- gbog 13y ago
  Or WeChat, which is quite big in China.
  - balladeer 13y ago
    KakaoTalk is not even mentioned. It's one of the biggest player and probably more famous than anything in S Korea. ChatOn has some userbase too.
    - dba7dba 13y ago
      Supposedly KakaoTalk has 90% market penetration in S Korea.
russell_h 13y ago
By the time smartphones were widely adopted in the US, SMS already had massive market penetration. Trying to adopt something else when your entire social network already uses SMS is a losing game. This is why, IMO, Apple, Google and Facebook are the only companies really in a position to change the messaging game in the US. There is space for newcomers (see: Snapchat), but they're going to have to work hard to spread beyond their initial niche. Apple is driving iMessage adoption via iOS, albeit mostly only for messaging between iOS devices. Facebook has a solid mobile install base already, but they can't seem to figure out how to convince users to use Facebook messaging. It actually works really well for me, but no one I know actually uses it. Google seems to be in the process of merging Hangouts and SMS. They're already the same app on Android, but you get to pick the protocol. Their logical endgame is to move all messaging to the Hangouts protocol, and fall back to Google Voice to deliver messages to users who don't have a Hangouts client. If Google can pull this off I think they're going to absolutely kill it, but they seem to be having a lot of execution problems.
- adsche 13y ago
  I don't know, SMS was huge in Germany as well, there were unlimited plans etc., still, today everyone uses WhatsApp. Group messages, broadcasts, media, cross-platform, and it's of course easier to convince people to use WhatsApp than Facebook. I lived in the US for a while, and I can't really come up with any reason why it should be different there. Only that way more people are on Facebook (and those are also way more active). Still, I can't really explain why texts stuck around even for smartphone users.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Hm, I could imagine that for those with smartphones unlimited SMS plans came maybe a bit later in Germany than in the US. When I was shopping for a mobile phone plan for my sister four years ago unlimited SMS were hard to find. Sure, now you get them everywhere, but I don’t think standard smartphone contracts had them four years ago. You had to pay obscenely more (something like double the monthly cost) if you could get unlimited SMS at all. I remember that the high cost of SMS were a real sticking point for my sister. In my experience smartphone contracts in Germany tended to be much cheaper than in the US but you would also get substantially less for your money. That’s still the case today with included unthrottled data volume. So maybe that’s one reason why Whatsapp took off. Another one I can think of is that Germany is less of an iOS monoculture than the US. Android is more widespread, so iMessage frequently gets you no benefit at all.
josteink 13y ago
I thought it was the de facto messaging app across the world? There is no such thing. IM is extremely fragmented into local markets, and you will find different solutions being the de-facto solutions at different locations. For reference, I'm from Europe and outside the Netherlands I have never heard of anyone using Whatsapp. I tried it once, and it found 2 contacts among my 100s. It was instantly deleted as it was of no use to me. I also remember it causing stability issues with my Android-phone, ensuring I will never ever install it on anything I own ever, for life, unless my primary intent is ruining that device. What's "hot" here, or at least what I've heard of people using is MSN, Skype, FB Messenger, Hangouts, Twitter(!) and IRC.

zippergz 13y ago

I can only speak for myself, but in the US I have never seen any need for it. I text or iMessage with my friends, and while I have had WhatsApp installed for a long time, I've never found something it does better for me. If I needed to communicate with people I couldn't text with, or if I were paying per text, it would probably be more compelling.

molmalo 13y ago
Well, to give you an example, here in Argentina, almost everyone in my phone's contact list uses WhatsApp. Here, the fact that you pay per message is a big incentive. But there are other advantages, like instant delivery, being sure that the message was received (double-check), better feedback ('X is online' when using the app, 'Last seen at 09:22', X is writing...), media sharing, groups, etc. simple things that help a lot. Also, it works both on iPhone and Android...
- neves 13y ago
  In Brazil, sometimes a SMS message takes hours to arrive. My bank sometimes send a validation code by SMS, but I can't use it because it expires before arriving.

nolok 13y ago

Some countries use Line rather than WhatsApp

gbog 13y ago
Or WeChat, which is quite big in China.
- balladeer 13y ago
  KakaoTalk is not even mentioned. It's one of the biggest player and probably more famous than anything in S Korea. ChatOn has some userbase too.
  - dba7dba 13y ago
    Supposedly KakaoTalk has 90% market penetration in S Korea.

russell_h 13y ago

By the time smartphones were widely adopted in the US, SMS already had massive market penetration. Trying to adopt something else when your entire social network already uses SMS is a losing game. This is why, IMO, Apple, Google and Facebook are the only companies really in a position to change the messaging game in the US. There is space for newcomers (see: Snapchat), but they're going to have to work hard to spread beyond their initial niche. Apple is driving iMessage adoption via iOS, albeit mostly only for messaging between iOS devices. Facebook has a solid mobile install base already, but they can't seem to figure out how to convince users to use Facebook messaging. It actually works really well for me, but no one I know actually uses it. Google seems to be in the process of merging Hangouts and SMS. They're already the same app on Android, but you get to pick the protocol. Their logical endgame is to move all messaging to the Hangouts protocol, and fall back to Google Voice to deliver messages to users who don't have a Hangouts client. If Google can pull this off I think they're going to absolutely kill it, but they seem to be having a lot of execution problems.

adsche 13y ago
I don't know, SMS was huge in Germany as well, there were unlimited plans etc., still, today everyone uses WhatsApp. Group messages, broadcasts, media, cross-platform, and it's of course easier to convince people to use WhatsApp than Facebook. I lived in the US for a while, and I can't really come up with any reason why it should be different there. Only that way more people are on Facebook (and those are also way more active). Still, I can't really explain why texts stuck around even for smartphone users.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Hm, I could imagine that for those with smartphones unlimited SMS plans came maybe a bit later in Germany than in the US. When I was shopping for a mobile phone plan for my sister four years ago unlimited SMS were hard to find. Sure, now you get them everywhere, but I don’t think standard smartphone contracts had them four years ago. You had to pay obscenely more (something like double the monthly cost) if you could get unlimited SMS at all. I remember that the high cost of SMS were a real sticking point for my sister. In my experience smartphone contracts in Germany tended to be much cheaper than in the US but you would also get substantially less for your money. That’s still the case today with included unthrottled data volume. So maybe that’s one reason why Whatsapp took off. Another one I can think of is that Germany is less of an iOS monoculture than the US. Android is more widespread, so iMessage frequently gets you no benefit at all.

josteink 13y ago

I thought it was the de facto messaging app across the world? There is no such thing. IM is extremely fragmented into local markets, and you will find different solutions being the de-facto solutions at different locations. For reference, I'm from Europe and outside the Netherlands I have never heard of anyone using Whatsapp. I tried it once, and it found 2 contacts among my 100s. It was instantly deleted as it was of no use to me. I also remember it causing stability issues with my Android-phone, ensuring I will never ever install it on anything I own ever, for life, unless my primary intent is ruining that device. What's "hot" here, or at least what I've heard of people using is MSN, Skype, FB Messenger, Hangouts, Twitter(!) and IRC.