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WhatsApp for Windows Phone (owner is Mark Zuckerberg from 19 Feb 2014) |
WhatsApp Inc. | |
Initial release | 2009 |
Available in | |
Website | |
WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary, cross-platforminstant messaging subscription service for smartphones. In addition to text messaging, users can send each other images, video, and audio media messages as well as their location using integrated mapping features. The client software is available for Google Android, BlackBerry OS, Apple iOS, selected Nokia Series 40, Symbian, selected Nokia Asha platform, Microsoft Windows Phoneand BlackBerry 10. WhatsApp Inc. was founded in 2009 by Americans Brian Actonand Jan Koum(also the CEO), both former employees of Yahoo!, and is based in Mountain View, CaliforniaThe company employs 55 people.
Competing with a number of Asian-based messaging services (like LINE, KakaoTalk, WeChat), WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp "has done to SMSon mobile phones what Skypedid to international calling on landlines."
As of November 10, 2013, WhatsApp had over 190 million monthly active users, 400 million photos are shared each day, and the messaging system handles more than 10 billion messages each day. In a December 2013 blog post, WhatsApp claimed that 400 million active users use the service each month.
On February 19, 2014, Facebook Inc.announced it is acquiring WhatsApp Inc. for US$19 billion. Facebook will pay $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares and $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp founders and employees that will vest over four years.
In January 2009, Jan Koumbought an iPhoneand realized that the then seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry of apps. He visited his friend Alex Fischer to discuss creating a new app. Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp because it sounded like “what’s up,” and a week later on his birthday, Feb. 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. Early WhatsApp, installed only by a handful of Koum's friends, kept crashing or getting stuck. The following month Koum admitted to Acton that he should start looking for a job. Acton persuaded him to continue with WhatsApp.[13]
In June 2009, Apple launched push notifications, letting developers ping users when they were not using an app. Koum updated WhatsApp so that each time you changed your status it would ping everyone in the user's network. WhatsApp 2.0 was released with a messaging component and the active users suddenly swelled to 250,000. Koum visited Acton, who was still unemployed while managing the unsuccessful start up, and decided to join the company. In October Acton persuaded five ex-Yahoo friends to invest $250,000 in seed funding, and as a result was granted co-founder status and a stake. He officially joined on November 1. Koum then hired an old friend who lived in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to make the BlackBerryversion of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was switched from a free to paid service to avoid growing too fast, mainly because the primary cost was sending verification texts to users. In December 2009 WhatsApp for the iPhone was updated to send photos. By early 2011, WhatsApp was in the top 20 of all apps in the U.S. App Store.
The founders agreed to take $8 million from Sequoia Capitalon top of their $250,000 seed funding, after months of negotiation with Sequoia partner Jim Goetz.
By Feb. 2013, WhatsApp's user base had swelled to about 200 million active users and its staff to 50. Sequoia invested another $50 million, valuing WhatsApp at $1.5 billion.
On Feb. 19, 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.
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