from Hacker News

What WhatsApp can learn from mobile payments in Asia

by drflet on 2/22/14, 5:12 PM with 17 comments

  • by yason on 2/22/14, 6:42 PM

    Facebook needs to either reinvent itself or go back to its roots and I'm afraid that buying success stories with billions isn't going to help in that.

    Facebook is currently rather incapable of delivering what I originally signed up for when I joined: keeping posted about how my friends are doing, and thus having the incentive to post something about my life as well because my friends could see how I'm doing. I can't in practice control what I see and how much I see from each friend. Things happen and I don't know about them until I happen to read through my friend's timeline manually. I don't know who actually sees my posts. That makes it rather useless.

    The core of what Facebook used to be would be really simple to implement and most people wouldn't genuinely need much more.

  • by jagira on 2/22/14, 6:16 PM

    WhatsApp is successful because it is just a simple messaging app and is free of any bloat that converts it to a platform.

  • by abalone on 2/22/14, 8:53 PM

    Why do so many people think payments is the key to monetization? Is it really as dumb as "it involves money"?

    Payment processing is a total commodity business that is super-resistant to increasing its tiny margins, which is what would need to happen to monetize it to the tune of a 10 digit valuation.

    In comparison layering advertising or premium features on top of messaging is a much more feasible way to generate revenue, since that is pure margin. It's not a superficially sexy / hand-wavey though.

  • by meritt on 2/22/14, 6:35 PM

    http://youtu.be/WgAtBTpm6Xk?t=14m40s

    WhatsApp CEO responding to a similar question in an interview.

    "The basic idea will continue to be a simple messaging app."

    "That's the beauty of an open and free market system, you can go download another application that let's you do that [share ephemeral photos]"

  • by RyanZAG on 2/22/14, 5:34 PM

    Most people just want a messenger though. They're not really interested in their messaging client selling them stuff. Feels like the article makes a pretty bold leap in assuming because a messaging company is experimenting with a store front, the company is actually succeeding in converting messaging users to purchasing users. I'm fairly sure that conversion number is extremely low, especially in China.

  • by Dragoncry on 2/22/14, 7:38 PM

    As people have mentioned already, Whatsapp is successful because it is simple and functional. Just because the revenue model of Whatsapp is simple doesn't mean it is less effective. Moreover, I believe 'platforms' are overrated. Facebook is a platform. But it is trying really hard to stay relevant today ($19 billion!).

    Messaging should be private; not a platform.