5 ms·

Outside of the US WhatsApp rules with an iron fist. Every non-tech person I know uses it. I hear it dropped in casual conversation at the table next to me in re

Outside of the US WhatsApp rules with an iron fist. Every non-tech person I know uses it. I hear it dropped in casual conversation at the table next to me in restaurants. It's got a public mindshare greater than Skype. And once all your friends are on it, it's not so easy to switch.

loceng 13y ago
I use it to regularly connect with my good friend who's in Hong Kong; He was the one who first used it and got me to download it.
JOfferijns 13y ago
I can definitely confirm this, at least in The Netherlands literally everybody uses Whatsapp and it has slowly become a verb - "I'll whatsapp you the details!". It's far from the best messaging app, but definitely the most popular (in Europe).
- soneca 13y ago
  In Brazil here, my girlfriend literally bought a new phone, a low-budget android, just to talk with her best friends through Whatsapp.
  - bosky101 13y ago
    India too...( where whatsapp adoption spread virally from blackberry, symbian, etc first and smartphones later) i work on an im client[1], and my mom sent me a link about whatsapp :) [1] to be fair, verbs.im is a gtalk/aol/yahoo multi-protocol client. infact, one day we could wrap over whatsapp as well. not exactly re-building a new graph but re-using your existing lists.
BruceM 13y ago
"Line" is doing very well in places as well.
stock_toaster 13y ago
Anecdote: Nobody I know uses it. I never hear it talked about at nearby tables.
danoprey 13y ago
In Europe it rules with an iron fist. Plenty of massive competitors elsewhere, especially with Asia and WeChat (Weixin - China), Line, Kakao...
brosephius 13y ago
Pretty fascinating reading the comments here about how big WhatsApp is outside of the US. I've never encountered anybody using it here, never would have guessed it's so popular elsewhere that it's been turned into a verb. I think this is a great example of why you should never be afraid to try and reinvent something. Even a concept as simple as messaging apparently still had a (potential) billion dollar opportunity.

loceng 13y ago

I use it to regularly connect with my good friend who's in Hong Kong; He was the one who first used it and got me to download it.

JOfferijns 13y ago

I can definitely confirm this, at least in The Netherlands literally everybody uses Whatsapp and it has slowly become a verb - "I'll whatsapp you the details!". It's far from the best messaging app, but definitely the most popular (in Europe).

soneca 13y ago
In Brazil here, my girlfriend literally bought a new phone, a low-budget android, just to talk with her best friends through Whatsapp.
- bosky101 13y ago
  India too...( where whatsapp adoption spread virally from blackberry, symbian, etc first and smartphones later) i work on an im client[1], and my mom sent me a link about whatsapp :) [1] to be fair, verbs.im is a gtalk/aol/yahoo multi-protocol client. infact, one day we could wrap over whatsapp as well. not exactly re-building a new graph but re-using your existing lists.

BruceM 13y ago

"Line" is doing very well in places as well.

stock_toaster 13y ago

Anecdote: Nobody I know uses it. I never hear it talked about at nearby tables.

danoprey 13y ago

In Europe it rules with an iron fist. Plenty of massive competitors elsewhere, especially with Asia and WeChat (Weixin - China), Line, Kakao...

brosephius 13y ago

Pretty fascinating reading the comments here about how big WhatsApp is outside of the US. I've never encountered anybody using it here, never would have guessed it's so popular elsewhere that it's been turned into a verb. I think this is a great example of why you should never be afraid to try and reinvent something. Even a concept as simple as messaging apparently still had a (potential) billion dollar opportunity.