With more than a billion users under its belt, WhatsApp is the second most popular instant messaging service on the market, but that impressive number hasn't changed its position as a loss leader. So Facebook's master plan is for WhatsApp to start making money. How exactly will it do that? The latest data points to the development of a new system that will allow direct communication between certain companies and users.
A direct line between companies and users
WhatsApp was absorbed by Facebook in February 2014. The final sum exceeded 19 billion dollars, and the idea in the corridors of the social network is to recover that investment. WhatsApp's monetization is insignificant, and in January of last year it definitively abandoned its subscription model. Back then, there was already speculation about greater communication between partner companies and service users, following the line of personalized support, flight bookings, and other similar cases. The latest information we have indicates that this contact mechanism is being evaluated.
Testing with startups
The companies participating in the experiment are startups linked to the accelerator Y Combinator. Its president Sam Altman said he was not aware of the new relationship between WhatsApp and the startups, but he recognized that many external agents seek to evaluate their products with Y Combinator. In contrast, WhatsApp spokespeople decided not to comment for now. The people at Cowlar, which sells accessories for the dairy industry, are part of the initiative. Their collars for dairy cows collect telemetry on performance, and their goal is to use WhatsApp to send the collar information directly to farmers.
The spam question
That kind of implementation is very interesting, but the question of the 19 billion is how to avoid abusive behavior. In essence, companies should be willing to pay to get in touch with potential customers or existing users of their services, while on the other side, WhatsApp conducts surveys to measure users' interest in talking to businesses through the messenger. Honestly, if this gets out of control, I prefer WhatsApp to return to the one dollar a year model...
