Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Dev.SN ♥ developers

Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for 16 Billion

posted by Dopefish on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-will-this-darn-bubble-pop-already? dept.

lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.

Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.

WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.

I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for 16 Billion | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 1000 moderator points   | 79 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 1) by song-of-the-pogo on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:57PM

    by song-of-the-pogo (1315) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:57PM (#3600) Homepage

    Yes, apparently they were acquired by Twitter on Nov. 28, 2011. It would appear that they open-sourced their software not long after their Twitter acquisition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_Systems [wikipedia.org]

    Regarding WhatsApp: I tried it quite some time ago, but never made regular use of it and haven't touched it in a couple of years. Even though I don't use it I am disappointed about the Facebook purchase. I'm tired of seeing service after service get absorbed, amoeba-fashion, by large players like Facebook, Google and Twitter. Furthermore, as I have no interest in ever joining Facebook and, in fact, would like to stay as far away from it as I reasonably can, I'm a little worried about my old, dangling WhatsApp account and am wondering what Facebook will glean from it. I suppose I should've made a more conscientious effort to clean up after myself.

    --
    "We have met the enemy and he is us."