Dec 13, 2012 10:52 PM
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(Updated Dec 13, 2012 10:52 PM)
Gone are the days, when communication meant a guy galloping on a pony from one town to the other to deliver messages. Then you had landline telephones and pagers which helped to convey our messages and then came internet, catting, e-mail, mobile phones.
Mobile phone is certainly one gift of technology which has made communication easier than one could have imagined. You can access your e-mails, send messages, browse through the internet with a tiny device right in your pocket.
Messaging has been one brilliant feature to highlight among these.
But still there was one concern among people which made people prefer calling over messaging and that was the constraint of balance deduction in the back of our head.
So a brilliant head thought over this and visioned about developing something that could get things rolling by the use of internet on phones to send out messages. This man named "Jan Koum" had deep faith in his vision and he developed one of the most useful and amazing apps today that we call "WHATSAPP"
Whatsapp has enabled people to send messages for free over the internet using mobile phones and lately they have developed a similar app for PC's as well
Jan Koum defined WATSAPP as "WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends."
And to be very frank, it is actually as great as it sounds.
With Whatsapp messenger on my phone, I can chat with all my contacts for free. You can share pictures, videos, files and all other form of multimedia. You can also create groups on Whatsapp where you can share anything with a bunch of people at the same time.
Previously something similar of this sort was available for only Blackberry Phones in the form of Blackberry Messenger Service (BBM) but the requirement was to have a Blackberry phone and a very high cost BBM plan.
But if you can get all these on any phone you want and at a reasonably low cost, then why would one opt for Blackberry phones now!!!
Initially the Whatsapp subscription is free and no cost for installing Whatsapp will be incurred. After a year you are charged a mere $0.99 which is hardly 50 rupees.
The main advantage of whatsapp is the fact it is widely available on all platforms. Also the way it integrates into the native messaging app in your android or windows phone is something other services cant match.Its simple, fast, has lots of people on it. A true winner in messaging space which kicks BBM hard since this is cross platform!
One of the main reason of Whatsapp success is that it used the user phone number as an ID. Thanks to that, new users immediately see in their friends list all their contact that have the app and you don't need to add new users. That's not a tehcnical innovation, that's just very smart.
Just like every other system... there are some flaws or short-comings of using Whatsapp
1) If you are using an iPhone then you need to pay for whatsapp, unless you decide to jail-break your phone where-in the warranty for the phone will be void.
2) Whatsapp in not available for phones with BADA OS
3) Though Whatsapp supports group chat, in my opinion it isn't the best Group messaging app as Kik beats it in this feature
On the contrary, Whatsapp is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am constantly on it to chat with my family and friends all over the world. Since I started using it last year, my mobile service provider has not made a cent from me in SMS's LOL.
