Introduction to Social Messengers

What Is Mobile Application?

Mobile applications have been gaining rising popularity due to
advances in mobile technologies and large increase in mobile users.
Consequently, several app distribution platforms, which provide new
way for developing, downloading, and updating software mobile
application in modern mobile device, have recently emerged.

A mobile application is a software application design to run on

smartphones, tablets computer and other mobile devices. They are
usually available through application distribution platform, which are
typically operated by the owners of the mobile operating system,
such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store and
Black Berry App World.

Instant messaging has become the killer app on mobile as

smartphone adoption has grown across the globe and Indian scene is
no exception. Three out of every four smartphone users in India is
now high mobile chatting making the market a lucrative one for chat
app companies

Whatsapp reigns supreme among mobile chat app with 76% of

smartphone users in India using to text each other, revealed a recent
study on smartphones usages in India by Informate Mobile
Intelligence.
 Introduction to Whatsapp
Whatsapp:

WhatsApp Messenger is a freeware, cross-platform messaging and

Voice over IP (VoIP) service owned by Facebook. It allows users to
send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls,
and share images, documents, user locations, and other media.
WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices but is also
accessible from desktop computers, as long as the user's mobile
device remains connected to the Internet while they use the desktop
app. The service requires users to provide a standard cellular mobile
number for registering with the service.In January 2018, WhatsApp
released a standalone business app targeted at small business
owners, called WhatsApp Business, to allow companies to
communicate with customers who use the standard WhatsApp client.

The client application was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain

View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014
for approximately US$ 19.3 billion. It became the world's most
popular messaging application by 2015,and has over 1.5 billion users
worldwide as of February 2018.It has become the primary means of
communication in multiple countries, including Brazil, India, Pakistan
and large parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and
France

When did WhatsApp start?

WhatsApp was incorporated in January 2009 by two former Yahoo
engineers known as Jan Koum and Brian Acton. On September 2007,
the duo took a break ftravelled and traveled to South America. At one
point, they even applied for jobs at Facebook, but their applications
were rejected. Ironically, WhatsApp would be bought by the same
company that rejected them in 2014.

Throughout the following years, Jan Koum relied solely on his

$400,000 savings from Yahoo. In January 2009, Apple’s app store was
launched. Koum saw a golden opportunity and pulled his resources,
time and effort into building what would become WhatsApp. By the
fall of 2009, WhatsApp had not received any significant growth. It
was during this period that Koum persuaded Acton to join him.

What are their core services and when did they

launch them?
Versatile collection of emojis

Emojis help to make conversations more dynamic and interactive.

WhatsApp lets you choose from a wide variety of emojis to add fuel
to your conversations, by making them more interesting.

Group Chat

This is a platform where groups of people like family and co-workers

keep in touch. Group chats can accommodate up to 256 people at
once. The members can share photos, images, and messages. They
can also name their group, customize notifications, place a group
profile picture and more.
WhatsApp on web and desktop

Users can download the app on the internet and add it to their
desktop to ease chatting. This way, you can seamlessly sync all your
chats on your desktop so that you can chat on whatever device you
feel is most convenient at the time.

WhatsApp voice and Video call

Users can now talk with their families and friends for free regardless
of location. They can also have face to face conversations, thanks to
video calls. These services use your phone’s internet connection and
not your cell phone’s voice minutes. Therefore, you do not have to
worry about expensive calls locally or internationally.

Security by default

All WhatsApp communications are fully secured from hackers by an

end to end encryption in their latest version of the app. This means
that only you and the person you are communicating with can gain
access to your private conversations and no one in-between.

Documents

Users can send documents, slideshows, spreadsheets and more

through their WhatsApp application. This feature makes it easy for
companies to communicate urgent information when need be.
Status Update

Users can now edit and post their photos, videos, and GIFs on the
WhatsApp status feature. This status stays up for 24 hours, after
which it automatically disappears.

Live location sharing

This feature was launched in October 2017, and it allows its users to
track their friends and families in real time. The location can be
shared on individual chats or groups as well

What have been their main issues and problems ?

The road to WhatsApp becoming the giant it is today has been filled
with humble beginnings and setbacks. In the first few days after
launching the app, it kept on crashing and getting stuck. It also
received a low response during this period with downloads, mostly by
the founder’s Russian friends. Koum almost gave up on the
application after a few failed attempts but was nudged on by Acton.

Help came its way after Apple launched push notifications in June
2009. Koum seized this opportunity and updated the application so
that whenever a user updated their status, it would ping everyone in
their network. Today, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook after airing it
for $19 billion.