Facebook to buy Whatsapp for $19 billion.

[Jodell88]

Z and fb leaders are simply throwing around fake money, ie investor money collatoralized by their stock price. Not only is Whatsapp not woth 19b, but neither is fb.

Richard Taylor from the BBC tweeted.

#facebook tell me #whatsapp to remain very independent. 450m monthly users - only 55 employees. But FB investors displeased..Stock -%5 #16bn

 

[Printer Bandit]

$3,000,000,000/55 employees = $54,545,454.55

 

[SAWYER]

Texting charges are still a thing?

 

[xanis]

Sounds like it's worth $19B for sure. Creating an app like that would take at least a few weeks, so yeah well priced ugh

I think it's just a little more complicated than that.

 

[cronos]

Texting charges are still a thing?

Apparently not, at least not to 450 million people

 

[zinfamous]

I've been using whatsapp because it's free, ad free, and allows em to leave short voice messages as well as txt messages ..

but ... if It gets bought out by facebook, I will get rid of it since they will bloat it and shitify it.

that sounds like a great name for the next fad app!

 

[UglyCasanova]

Z and fb leaders are simply throwing around fake money, ie investor money collatoralized by their stock price. Not only is Whatsapp not woth 19b, but neither is fb.

Agreed. Anything on the internet, and especially anything "social" loses favor as new things pop up all the time. I see this as an incredibly short sited move, but hell I see facebook as that as well. Eventually people will lose interest and move on.

 

[Miramonti]

Richard Taylor from the BBC tweeted.

#facebook tell me #whatsapp to remain very independent. 450m monthly users - only 55 employees. But FB investors displeased..Stock -%5 #16bn

How can you pay 19b for something and not make it your b!tch. LOL

 

[Doppel]

I think it's just a little more complicated than that.

And little is probably accurate. 55 employees, these include management, HR, marketing, infrastructure, etc. how many actually are involved in development? And $19B it's absurd in the extreme.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I must no longer be in the "in" crowd. No one I know, young or old, has heard of this $17B app.

PS. They just want it for more data on you.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's crazy. Second time Facebook values some completely random app hardly nobody uses at such a high price. The last one was Snapchat. Never heard of either of these apps. I guess they have their own niche users and it's aparantly big enough for them to value it that high.

Seems to me coding a messaging app from scratch would cost way less than buying one though, but guess it's all the copyright/patent/IP stuff that they want, and guess the existing userbase too.

I'm still waiting for the day Google buys Facebook. G+ is a failure, so they can just buy Facebook and convert it to G+. I'm sure Google salivates at the thought of gathering, mining and selling all this data.

 

[Doppel]

Some of you guys are hugely out of touch. What, are you going to say you haven't heard of TalkTot, CameraCow, or HOTfink? So out of touch!!

 

[KidNiki1]

Never heard of it.

EDIT: Oh, it's like iMessage for poor people who use Androids hee hee

or people who have friends in other countries and dont want to pay ridiculous texting fees.

 

[Doppel]

or people who have friends in other countries and dont want to pay ridiculous texting fees.

Yeah, poor people.

 

[lxskllr]

Good. That should hasten the inevitable collapse, and I can partake in some delicious schadenfreude.

 

[mizzou]

if only advertisers realized how little $ they make off of some of us through FB lol

Oh well, maybe everyone else is a sucker but me.

 

[mizzou]

schadenfreude.

you made me use google search lol

 

[WelshBloke]

Second time Facebook values some completely random app hardly nobody uses at such a high price.

Eh? WhatsApp is one of the most used chat apps in the world.

 

[nickbits]

Yeah, poor people.

I'm not poor--just cheap. The thought of paying $.50 to text my brother really grinds my gears. However I don't use whatsapp because no one I know has it. Instead I use free texting apps, currently using google voice.

 

[lxskllr]

you made me use google search lol

Don't feel bad. I had to DuckDuckGo the spelling :^D

My US English spell check wasn't being very helpful :^D

 

[Fayd]

Don't feel bad. I had to DuckDuckGo the spelling :^D

My US English spell check wasn't being very helpful :^D

uh...isn't that some guy's username on these forums?

 

[Doppel]

I'm not poor--just cheap. The thought of paying $.50 to text my brother really grinds my gears. However I don't use whatsapp because no one I know has it. Instead I use free texting apps, currently using google voice.

Actually there is somebody I can't text who lives in another country because one of our phones' services won't connect. I guess this would get around it when email isn't used.

Eh? WhatsApp is one of the most used chat apps in the world.

And yet many on this tech forum still haven't heard of it.

 

[postmortemIA]

Z and fb leaders are simply throwing around fake money, ie investor money collatoralized by their stock price. Not only is Whatsapp not woth 19b, but neither is fb.

if it is fake money, why don't they buy real things, and make it real

 

[WelshBloke]

And yet many on this tech forum still haven't heard of it.

The US is a bit weird for messenger apps.
Your phone contracts with bundled free texts sort of distorts the market for mobile messenger apps.

You'll just have to take my word (or just do a quick Google ) that WhatsApp is indeed one of the big dogs of the messaging world.

 

[lxskllr]

The US is a bit weird for messenger apps.
Your phone contracts with bundled free texts sort of distorts the market for mobile messenger apps.

You'll just have to take my word (or just do a quick Google ) that WhatsApp is indeed one of the big dogs of the messaging world.

Texts should be virtually free anyway. There's no reason a company couldn't make money by charging $5 for 10k messages or so. The data quantity is small enough to get lost in the noise. The exorbitant rates companies charge is ridiculous.