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Whatsapp Integration?

How useful is the data that Facebook can obtain from WhatsApp?

  • WhatsApp won't advertise. Most if not virtually all users will quit if WhatsApp charges each user 3.9 cents a day instead of $1 a year after a free first year. So WhatsApp's only value add to Facebook (besides no longer competing with it for eyeballs) is its user data. WhatsApp has nothing else to offer. Facebook is not paying $19 bn just to acqui-hire 55 employees, talented as they are. So how useful is this data, assuming WhatsApp is going to wholesale give all the user data to its owner, Facebook, to slice, dice, aggregate, analyze and crunch at will? Even if WhatsApp does a Facebook and violates its user's privacy, how much useful data can it produce?

  • Answer:

    The data Facebook receives from the WhatsApp acquisition could be very helpful in understanding capturing users in emerging markets. Per http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/whatsapp-provide-a-trove-data-facebook/291795/ In the short term, Facebook stands to glean more information on emerging markets via the acquisition. Mobile phone service Jana conducts surveys of its users in exchange for phone usage data. The firm http://www.jana.com/blog/facebook-can-juice-whatsapp-billions-from-emerging-markets/ that WhatsApp is popular in emerging markets. In Brazil, 63% of Jana survey participants said WhatsApp is their most-used messaging service, compared to 5.58% who named Facebook as their go-to message app. In India, WhatsApp was the favorite of 55% compared to 0.85% for Facebook. In Mexico, 76% said they prefer WhatsApp while just 5% said Facebook. With the acquisition, Facebook aims for better engagement with users in emerging markets, suggested Nathan Eagle, Jana's cofounder and CEO. "Data in general is not really [WhatsApp's] focus," he said, adding that perfecting a fast, efficient and inexpensive messaging service is "their laser focus."

Hunter McCord at Quora Visit the source

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Everyone wonders if Whatsapp is worth $19B and all poos and mehs around.. However, I would say $19B is cheap for what its worth in this context. All Facebook has to do is, make users verify their phone numbers if they list one in facebook. Thats it. It does not need to serve single advertisement in WhatsApp ever. Here is how FB could use Whats app to enrich its ad business The moment a FB phone number is verified, suddenly the underlying data in FB and WhatsApp are related by a strong link. Yes – the phone number. When i Whatsapp my friend Amy ” Hey ! how about a movie and dinner tonight” .. boom.. the data is right in there.. I log in to FB and see the ads for “About last night” movie, and the restaurant advertisement for an Indian Bistro. Yes. Facebook can make all this advertisement decisions based on - it knows which part of the world im from (hometown in facebook) - it knows which part of the world im in (mobile number and location) - it knows what kind of interests i have (my Facebook posts, likes, data mining my whatsapp and FB messenger conversations) - What i have currently looked into (browser cookies) And the best of all, till now, they serve advertisements based on your past. but with whatsapp messaging data they can use the context and even serve ads anticipating what im going to do next. Now take into account, if facebook becomes aggressive and becomes a ad provider across the web. (a single step to kill google).. This would be the most cognitive ad network that you could see. Lets take another instance of whatsapp message ” Hey buddy, tomorrow im busy. going to get my taxes done “ and i get Advertisement in the web – ” H&R block gives 20% discount on taxes for tomorrow”. Then it has got more data to do data analytics on my relationships. the moment it figures out that my relationship is going downhill, all those dating app advertisements come to me across the entire web. And then comes the scarier part. Now Facebook is the single point of contact to get to know everything about you for legitimate governmental or any other illegitimate reasons. one gets access to the Web based Facebook social graph. And then you get access to the Whatsapp based Mobile social graph. Google must be thinking the impact. suddenly its ad network seems fragile.. Its not the content that makes FB looks richer.. its not the # of Users.. but the sudden potential for FB to predict what am going to do next. What am i looking for. it can induce me in to buying things or making decisions based on a casual conversation that i had with someone.. Wow… Suddenly Facebook looks more powerful and much scarier. Its time to go and buy more FB stocks.. accumulate it like never before..

Anshul Garg

It all comes to data that Whatsapp has access to mostly mobile numbers of people, I think what Facebook is going to do is connect Whatsapp with login in Facebook, this way Facebook will have mountain load of mobile number data that many people don't add in Facebook accounts by themselves. The data will help FB to discover more target interests of people by monitoring their activities on WhatsApp messaging.

Ahsan Parwez

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