Third party messenger service apps have undoubtedly found more takers than traditional messengers. Apps such as Viber, Kakao talk and WeChat are being used by an increasing number of customers. Perhaps the most popular of the third-party messenger service apps is Whatsapp.According to a recent statistic, the company reportedly processed 18 billion messages during New Years Eve. But that’s not the only interesting news about Whatsapp right now. Google has renewed its efforts to purchase Whatsapp.
Both Google and Facebook were reportedly interested in purchasing Whatsapp. Recent reports however, suggest that Whatsapp and Google have been discussing a possible acquisition for the past month. Reports suggest that Whatsapp is angling to get a higher value for its product. The price of Whatsapp may be as high as $1 billion. Google may be more than willing to shell out any amount quoted by Whatsapp.
Google needs to completely revamp itself as far as messaging is concerned. The Gtalk chat messenger popular until recently hasn’t seen any changes over the years. The number of takers for Gtalk has also reduced due to the rise of several third-party messenger services. According to some reports Google may be working on a simple, unified messenger to work on all platforms, tentatively called Babel. Google almost desperately needs the talents of current Whatsapp developers to create a popular unified cross-platform chat service. This would also mean Google does not need to enter this highly competitive market with a totally new product.
Facebook has also begun forays into the arena of mobile messaging. The new improved Facebook messenger lets you sign up with your mobile number, very much like Whatsapp. Facebook messenger also allows US accounts to make voice calls. Google needs to be imaginative if it hopes to catch up with Facebook.
This acquisition is a great play financially. Whatsapp has never spoken numbers, but experts suggest the company may be rolling in close to a $100 million every year. It has managed to stay totally ad free with just $0.99 for iOS users at the time of download. Android users on the other hand get a year’s free service post which they are required to pay $0.99 a year as subscription fee. This can be extended almost indefinitely. Whatsapp even has trade tie-ups with a few global mobile service providers, who offer particular data plans, in a profit sharing agreement.
However, if you belong to the decided minority who has no clue what Whatsapp means and by extension has no idea what was being said till now, Whatsapp is a third party messenger service that lets you share text, images, video and audio clips among other users who also use the app. The communication is possible across platforms irrelevant of the device they have. Whatsapp is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and windows phone.
If you have not yet begun using Whatsapp, the best time to use it would be now. Go to your respective app store and get Whatsapp for your phone today. Whether Whatsapp remains to function individually or integrated into Babel remains to be seen. But this may just prove to be a masterstroke for Google.
