strattitarius writes "Mark Zuckerberg met with top mobile and telco executives to address concerns that Internet providers are becoming "simple pipes" as apps like WhatsApp eat into high-margin over-the-top services such as text messaging and even voice communications. Orange SA CEO Stephane Richard stated "The risk for us is being excluded from the world of services".
It would seem that the telcos are realizing that they have been behind the curve as Richard stated "A service like WhatsApp, to be honest, that's something we could've and should've come up with before". Ironically in doing so, they basically make the case that they had every chance and advantage to create these apps and monetize them just as WhatsApp and Skype have done."
(Score: 1) by citizenr on Friday February 28 2014, @12:47PM
>I think they are just angry that _they_ didn't think it is possible advertisers would give them such an amount of money for the
>personal information of their customers back when social networks took off.
Telefónica (fifth largest provider in the world) has been collecting (and trading) this information since forever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzS83BGdWco [youtube.com]