LOYALTY360 - Global Overview Report surveyed social media users aged 16-64 and determined their platform preferences. 16% of respondents cited WhatsApp as their preferred platform, ahead of Instagram (14.3%), TikTok (6.1%), and Facebook (0.1%). WhatsApp had ~420M downloads in 2022 and currently boasts ~2B active users.
49 posts categorized "WhatsApp"
WhatsApp Outperforms Other Social Media Platforms in Survey
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WhatsApp to Launch Voice Status Feature
MINUTE MIRROR - A "Voice Status" feature for users of the instant messaging service WhatsApp is scheduled to launch shortly. Currently, WhatsApp only provides access to video, images, and contact status.
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Pavel Durov Said That Hackers Can Use WhatsApp to Gain Full Access to the Phone
MEDUZA - Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram messenger and VKontakte, wrote on his Telegram channel that hackers would only need to send a malicious video or make a video call by WhatsApp to gain full access to the targeted phone. Similar problems with WhatsApp have been found almost every year since 2017. The fact that a vulnerability is discovered and solved doesn't mean that there won’t be a new one in the future, he explained.
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WhatsApp Finally Brings Feature to Turn Users Into a Sticker
MASHABLE - WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Meta, is developing a new feature to put up an avatar as a profile photo. Currently, WhatsApp provides emoticons, GIFs, stickers, and more to spice up discussions. Users will be able to personalise their avatars.
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WhatsApp Rolls out In-App Shopping Product With India's JioMart
BLOOMBERG - WhatsApp is rolling out a shopping product in India, the first time users will be able to browse and purchase groceries and other household products without leaving the app. WhatsApp unveiled the new tool alongside JioMart, part of Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Jio Platforms, an Indian tech company that Meta invested almost $6B into in early 2020.
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Meta Invests in Take App, a Singaporean Startup That Helps Merchants Sell via WhatsApp
TECH CRUNCH - Meta recently invested in Take App, a fledgling Singaporean startup founded by former Facebook engineering manager Youmin Kim, who left the social network last year to work on the app. Take App serves as an easy way for those with little technical know-how to set up a simple website to facilitate online orders, replete with a shopping cart, payments, and a direct connection to WhatsApp for managing and tracking the final order. The company claims 1K businesses have used Take App across 35 different markets, though the vast majority are based in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
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For This Reason, WhatsApp Is Not So Popular in the US
GEARRICE - A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in the US showed that WhatsApp does not have much popularity. It is estimated that less than 20% of smartphone users use the WhatsApp mobile application. Currently, in that country, mobile phone offers for SMS are very attractive, thanks to the rates for text messages and free minutes included in almost all plans. Facebook Messenger is also another online communication service that is widely used in the US with a. 87%. This is followed by FaceTime at 34%, Zoom (34%), and even Snapchat (25%).
by Henry Purdy
See full article at Gearrice
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WhatsApp Is Given a Month to Fix Consumer ToS Concerns in Europe
TECH CRUNCH - WhatsApp has been warned by European regulators it has one more month to fix its confusing ToS. The Meta-owned messaging platform has been under investigation by the bloc following a series of consumer protection complaints lodged against it by the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, led by Sweden's national authority, back in Jul 2021. "WhatsApp must ensure that users understand what they are agreeing to and how their personal data is being used for commercial purposes, in particular, to offer services to business partners," added justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, in a statement.
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WhatsApp Communities Lets Users Build Users' Own Social Network
KNOW TECHIE - WhatsApp has just announced a new feature called Communities. The Communities feature will be focused on bringing groups of people together to make conversation and planning easier. Users will be able to join specific groups to tackle certain topics. Updates can be shared with an entire Community. And admins will have the ability to send out special announcement messages to a Community's entire membership.
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WhatsApp Permitted to Extend Payments Service to 100M Users in India
TECH CRUNCH - The National Payments Corporation of India, the payments body that oversees the widely popular UPI instrument, has given approval to WhatsApp to extend its payments service to 100M users in the South Asian market. The slow rollout of WhatsApp Pay has allowed the company's payments rivals to gain wider market share in India. Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe own over 70% of the UPI market share.
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WhatsApp Is Under Threat From New EU Law That Could Make Messaging Less Secure
EXPRESS - The European Union (EU) is introducing radical new legislation which security experts fear could harm the strength of end-to-end encryption baked into WhatsApp - shielding users' messages from prying eyes. This would also impact other apps such as iMessage and Facebook Messenger. The message, files, and video calls would all need to be exchanged between the biggest messenger apps and smaller ones.
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WhatsApp Working on Feature to Limit Forwarding of Messages in Group Chat
INDIA TIMES - WhatsApp seems to be working on a new feature on its recent beta updates that would limit the forwarding to just one WhatsApp group. Users on that beta, when tried to forward a message to more than one WhatsApp group, the messing app would throw a pop-up on the screen with the text, "Forwarded messages can only be sent to one group chat." If one needs to forward this message to more than one group chat, they'll need to select the message and forward it again.
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WhatsApp Is Planning to Get Back the Old Interface
MASHABLE - WhatsApp has rolled out a new voice call interface for Android users, displaying the contact's name, number, profile image, and call length. The firm is now introducing the old interface for WhatsApp contact lists. Besides, WhatsApp recently modified the layout for the in-app contacts list, adding two new options: often contacted and recent talks.
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EU Commission Requires WhatsApp to Clarify How It Processes Personal Data
EURACTIV - EU Commission sent a letter to WhatsApp asking how its new privacy policy meets the EU consumer protection requirements and clarifications on the exchanges of personal data with the parent company Meta. The letter results from a complaint filed by BEUC in July. The consumer organizations considered the messaging app unfairly pressured consumers with aggressive pop-ups to accept its new terms without adequately explaining how their data would be processed.
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Meta's Workplace Will Integrate With WhatsApp Later This Year
TECH CRUNCH - Workplace, a Meta-owned social network for enterprise employees to communicate with each other, will soon be adding integration with WhatsApp so that Workplace customers can cross-post announcements and share other data with employees using the messaging app.
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