Facebook to acquire WhatsApp?

[VDub2174]

Saw this on Facebook today:

I?m excited to announce that we?ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day.

WhatsApp is a simple, fast and reliable mobile messaging service that is used by over 450 million people on every major mobile platform. More than 1 million people sign up for WhatsApp every day and it is on its way to connecting one billion people. More and more people rely on WhatsApp to communicate with all of their contacts every day.

WhatsApp will continue to operate independently within Facebook. The product roadmap will remain unchanged and the team is going to stay in Mountain View. Over the next few years, we're going to work hard to help WhatsApp grow and connect the whole world. We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts forInternet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone.

WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone.

WhatsApp had every option in the world, so I?m thrilled that they chose to work with us. I?m looking forward to what Facebook and WhatsApp can do together, and to developing great new mobile services that give people even more options for connecting.

I've also known Jan for a long time, and I know that we both share the vision of making the world more open and connected. I'm particularly happy that Jan has agreed to join the Facebook board and partner with me to shape Facebook's future as well as WhatsApp's.

Jan and the WhatsApp team have done some amazing work to connect almost half a billion people. I can?t wait for them to join Facebook and help us connect the rest of the world.

Mark Zuckerberg

 

[Ry]

whoa.

Why Facebook Dropped $19B On WhatsApp: Reach Into Europe, Emerging Markets | TechCrunch

 

[zorak950]

It's a smart play. One just hopes they don't screw it up like so many little companies acquired by giants before it.

 

[Linh321]

19+ billions is a lot to dish out though!

Posted via Android Central App with LG Google Nexus 4

 

[Ry]

Google reportedly offered to acquire WhatsApp for $10 billion (update)

Update: According to The Information, Google CEO Larry Page met with WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum last week, as a last-minute attempt to stop an impending acquisition by Facebook. Page reportedly called WhatsApp "a big threat to Facebook" and even offered to outbid the social network's $19 billion offer. Wow.

 

[VDub2174]

Could you imagine what Google could do with WhatsApp?

 

[sheryltoo]

I got an email notification this morning from Whatsapp saying I had 6 new voice messages. I didn't even sign up for this so why did I get it? If I use a facebook app on my smartphone, does Facebook automatically sign you up for this service? I never put any phone number into my preferences on facebook. And I have no idea why they're saying I have 6 voice messages especially when no one called me on my cell phone on the recent date they included in the message.
I rarely make phone calls on my cell phone.

 

[VDub2174]

That's weird.

Sent from my Anthem filled Note 3

 

[sheryltoo]

That's what I thought and I don't know who I need to talk to to find out why I got this email.

 

[VDub2174]

That's what I thought and I don't know who I need to talk to to find out why I got this email.

I haven't gotten an email like that (I think). I have my FB tied to another email account.

Sent from my Anthem filled Note 3