The Greatest Story Technology last week was undoubtedly the acquisition by Facebook WhatsApp for $ 19 billion. This amazing figure is six times more than the $ 3 billion that Snapchat turned down. They spent $ 340 million for each employee WhatsApp.
So why do you want that Facebook paid megabucks for this acquisition? It is certainly not for the revenue potential. WhatsApp charges its 450 million users $ 1 per year to use the service. We are not mathematical geniuses, but that's an estimated $ 450 million in annual revenues. Facebook has promised not to insert ads in the service squeeze more money out of it. So even if the service continues to grow, it will take many years to get even close to the $ 19 billion they paid for it.
This brings us to the next question. What Facebook considers more valuable than pure recipes? Data! Specifically, they want your data. They bought WhatsApp Facebook because it gives access to a multitude of user data, opening mining opportunities, and concerns of possible privacy.
The WhatsApp privacy policy is not great (some would say ugly). They can access your address book, pick up the phone and upload them to their servers. Think about it: even if you do not use WhatsApp, if one of your contacts, your phone number is stored on servers WhatsApps. Now Facebook has billions of phone numbers and there is a good chance they have your mobile phone number. What they do with that data is yet to be seen. But one thing we know for sure is that this modest sum price was not about money, but really on the user's data.
Some people are already scooping on WhatsApp. Are you a WhatsApp user? Will you stay with the service? Let us know in the comments section below.
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