WhatsApp's greatest strength is that it's username is tied to your mobile phone number. To date, the is the only truly global identifiable standard for identity

WhatsApp's greatest strength is that it's username is tied to your mobile phone number. To date, the is the only truly global identifiable standard for identity. Is there variation? Sure, but not as much as confusion with duplicate names, languages, standardization of names, etc. IMO this is the only reason WhatsApp won over Hangouts/ICQ/IRC/AIM/etc.