Whatsapp vs Viber – Who got a better deal?

[mutant]

I did a feature comparison to mobile messengers a while back. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtWoXGrBr42pdDl...

[Oatary]

Interesting company behind Google Voice

[classic_vibe]

I hope that they dont force me to use a fb login in whatsapp now!! That'll really suck.

[izolate]

If you think that was their intention with this acquisition, you're mistaken. WhatsApp poses a threat to traditional social networking, and Facebook obviously wants a leg in that race.

[xbadxapple]

I don't think they are that stupid. Would surely lose a chunk of their user base.

But you never know with companies becoming overconfident...

[varunsharma13]

Buying a messenger was only logical for fb...fb chat was not going to compete with the likes of whatsapp...if you cannot beat them, buy them :D

[anujbhargava]

Synergies in Viber - Rakuten deal seems better as there is a minimal overlap of user base especially in terms of geography.

[tanujm]

Now FB has another layer of data about our phone contacts..

[cliveowen]

The Facebook app can already: -read your SMS messages

-modify/read your contacts

-read/write your call log

-read the contents of your storage

-retrieve running apps (i.e. it knows every app you have installed on your device, given enough time)

There's so much talk about how Google knows its users better than anyone else, but I think there's little doubt that Facebook gets the throne as far as data collection goes. And lets not forget that in addition to all the above data Facebook knows the 99% of your browsing activity and even when you opened a certain website.

There's really nothing more they can take from us, so I highly doubt this acquisition was meant to bolster their data collection capabilites.

[varunsharma13]

I would call that extra layer of data peanuts in an ocean...

[pratkar]

don't forget the location data.

you might see 'last seen on 14:29 at the local deli' on Whatsapp from now on!