Identity (online and offline) is ultimately what this entire market (and product space) is about. 100 years ago, all you had was a street address. Then came t

Identity (online and offline) is ultimately what this entire market (and product space) is about. 100 years ago, all you had was a street address. Then came telegrams (but often the last mile was still your street address. For the last 50 years, you added a telephone number. Then Fax/Telex. What the last 20 years (or so) has seen is the complete disruption of these channels. Email is an entirely new medium giving you a unique new address and mobile phones allowed you to personalise a phone number (rather than call someone's home and hope not to speak to partner/child/parent). And then came Facebook (and to a lesser extent Twitter). All of a sudden, you don't need to tell someone you want to have a relationship with (in the broadest sense of the word) you address, phone number, etc. Just your Facebook profile. This is a seismic shift in our communication. In each of these cases, you have a unique identity that people can reach you on. As the author points out, to whom and how much you want to publicise that identity is based on the reach and likelihood for abuse. However, it's a new identity. Why WhatsApp and kik (and others) have value is they are the registry of these new identities. These identities are used not only to interact or communicate, they are increasingly becoming the hub of all online interactions: taxi fares, online commerce, sharing other forms of media. EBay started us down this journey where as a seller you can provide as much or as little information as you like. Ultimately, to own the registry is to own the identities and access to them. This is very powerful and why you need to keep inventing and re-inventing the platform to retain and acquire new identities. That there were a billion WhatsApp users out there that may never need to login to Facebook again is a massive strategic threat to Facebook - hence the valuation and hence why messaging or identity is tremendously valuable.