Facebook, one of the most accessed social networking sites in the world, has recently bought the free messenger application, WhatsApp for $19 billion dollars. This move has made WhatsApp users as well as other experts of technology very anxious because the buyout is expected to bring a lot of change to WhatsApp.
One year back, it was Google who first tried to buy WhatsApp with an offer of $10 billion dollars. WhatsApp refused the offer as it was not happy with the money that was being offered. WhatsApp immediately accepted the offer when Facebook came out with the same proposal but for a much higher amount of $19 billion dollars. The deal has been clearly a winning streak for WhatsApp. However, the same cannot be said for Facebook as WhatsApp is a hugely popular application with millions of new users adding themselves on the application. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerburg has always wanted to create a platform which brings the people around the world together. The already huge user database of WhatsApp will help Facebook improve this vision.
In terms of each WhatsApp user, we can say that Facebook has bought each one of them for $42 per person. Since Facebook would have to make profit and gain more revenues after buying WhatsApp, it is very likely that they will bring about a lot of changes in the application. The points below are some of the changes that are speculated by WhatsApp users and other experts.
Complex registration process
Facebook has always been competing with Google in the race of gaining more subscriber users, which must be the main reason why they bought WhatsApp as the IM already has a huge user database. Until now, users have only needed to give their phone number during the registration process of WhatsApp. After the buyout, Facebook would definitely want to merge this database with the already existing database in their social media site. This integration would require users to submit much more information during the new registration process. This means that the process of registration will become very complex compared to the easy method that has been provided by WhatsApp till now.
How will the buyout benefit Facebook in terms of revenue?
Now that Facebook has bought WhatsApp by paying approximately $42 for each active user, it is imperative that Facebook will try to get back all this money in terms of revenue by making changes to the already existing application. WhatsApp has always been a free application for the first year, after which users are charged a small yearly fee of $0.99 until now. It will not be surprising if Facebook changes this trend and makes WhatsApp a paid application from the first year itself and subsequently increase the yearly fee in the following years. If Facebook chooses this path, then WhatsApp will become one of the most expensive IM applications.
Issues regarding privacy
The buyout may also cost users of their privacy since there are chances that Facebook will add their feature of real-time location in WhatsApp which will reveal a user’s current location to all other users.