Focusing only on messaging apps, Facebook Messenger stands out. WhatsApp increased in usage by 2% to 27% of the respondents, almost passing Snapchat as the second most regularly used messenger in the US compared to last year. WeChat and Viber usage show small improvements, Telegram more than triples its usage from 3% to 10%. For an overview of the top messaging apps worldwide – from Apple Business Chat, to WhatsApp, to LINE – and their business potential, check out our series Messaging Apps & Brands.
They are not very transparant and take a long time to implement changes / fixes that they promise will be implemented. Facebook is a social networking service that was created by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. Initially designed as a networking tool for Harvard students, it quickly spread to other schools and was finally opened to the public in 2006. Facebook is now, by a very wide margin, the biggest social network worldwide. In 2012, Facebook purchased the photo and video-sharing social media site Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock shares. At the time of the purchase, Instagram wasn’t generating any revenue and only had about 30 million users.
WhatsApp made money by asking some users to pay about $1 to download, with each year costing the same to renew. However in some countries the first year is free, and in January 2016 the company scrapped the annual charge. It also makes money through online games, advertising, selling emoticons and stickers.
Although Brian Acton wasn’t quite as actively involved in the WhatsApp development process, he wanted to help Jan Koum turn WhatsApp into a sustainable application. The WhatsApp team’s distaste for advertisements led them to expand on the reason that they didn’t sell ads on their application with a link that leads to a quote from Fight Club. Others believe that the name change is just another way for Mark Zuckerberg’s company to try and save its reputation.
But there are concerns over whether Signal can maintain this free model as its user base increases to the tens, or potentially in the future, hundreds of millions. Signal is adamant it can continue to offer its service for free. “As a non-profit, we simply need to break even,” says Aruna Harder, the app’s COO.
As a WhatsApp use up you are voluntarily giving away some personal data to Facebook like a phone number and Whatsapp contact list for better-targeted ads and friend solutions as they claim. So don’t be surprised if you see a friend or follow sedition pop up on Facebook or Instagram just after you’ve added them to your phone the directory or your friendly neighborhood retailer. Whatsapp’s cofounder and CEO Jan Koum, left whatsapp group because of their argument with facebook regarding data privacy and whatsapp business model. The company is also expanding into services like online payments, eCommerce, and business messaging. These services don’t make much money yet but likely will in the future. Once that’s done, you can now send messages, media files, documents, and many such other things to the contacts saved on your phone using the app.
“It’s been cut up so many times for utility work and maintenance … we’d prefer not to have to get over there and work,” Reed said. Reed said downtown was given no priority in the pecking order due to its emergence as a tourist destination and force for economic development. He said the city has a pavement program “that drives selection,” relying on algorithms and data collected from work orders. He said, for example, James Avenue from Interstate 35 to South 12th Street at Baylor University will get fixed, probably in 2024. The stretch has become a drain on resources, crews responding to more than 100 work orders.