It wasn't long ago that Google [GOOG] was in negotiations to buy both Waze and WhatsApp. However while the GPS maps service with cool technology was snapped up for a rumored $1 billion dollars by Google, WhatsApp wasn't. So what gives?
A recent story over at Guardian pointed out the general shift away from Facebook to general chat apps like Kakao Talk, Snapchat and WhatsApp. Given that Google Plus isn't the successfull Facebook killer that the search giant hoped, you would think they would have jumped on WhatsApp and its reported 250 million users worldwide.
Speculations suggest that they did in fact show interest in buying WhatsApp from its owners – two ex-Yahoo staff. However if rumors are true then Google weren't ready to pay $1 billion for the chat app despite doing the same for Waze. And that was possibly why the WhatsApp creators didn't agree.
Now if this is in fact true then why did Google find Waze worth all that money but not WhatsApp? Well Waze does have some innovative technology behind it that we don't see on other GPS apps. As for WhatsApp its selling point is users. However Google knowsthat users come and go and they are not a company that are desperate for user data. Well, not desperate enough to pay a cool billion for it at least.
There's no doubt that WhatsApp is one of the best chat apps out there. But then again a lot was said about apps like Line, Viber and such. And now we've also got the BBM app coming in on the action. Just how long will WhatsApp be able to keep growing remains to be seen.
via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHBMWfWm9YTjkc1thPt6C82NdKa8A&url=http://www.sidhtech.com/news/google-whatsapp-waze/10023774/
Put the internet to work for you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment