What's up WhatsApp?

In November 2009 WhatsApp was launched on the iOS platform as a iPhone app. It was converted from a free app to a paid app to cover the costs of verification which WhatsApp does. By January 2010 it was made available on Blackberry too. From there on there was no looking back for this app. It reached the 200 million user mark by February 2013 and rocketed to 400 million users by December 2013. When Facebook took over the company formed by Koum and Acton by paying 19.5 billion USD it had touched 500 million users.

What is significant is, in India the growth has been phenomenal and has not just kept pace with the overall growth of WhatsApp but probably set a trend by itself. We love to chat and if it is free then we can do it for hours together. It is estimated that 9-10% of the overall WhatsApp users are from India and if we include the PIO's probably we would be about 12% of the overall user base. Indeed we will have to wait to see what will happen when WhatsApp goes subscription model, which it hasn't on Android platform

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Today we have become slaves for WhatsApp. There was a time when we sent a mail we used to sit and eagerly wait for the reply. Today thanks to the smart phone revolution we are totally been enslaved by WhatsApp. We send a message look for the second tick to appear and then the waiting is for the 'Double Tick' to change its colour to Blue to indicate to us that the message is read.

The Blue ticks have made many a person's life miserable because they would be questioned as to why they didn’t respond even after seeing the message. Other problem is the message 'Last seen' that appears just below the name or number of the person. This instantly tells us that when our contact was online in WhatsApp. In spite of these small irritants the usage of WhatsApp has been very extensive in India and uses have been innumerable.

WhatsApp has got features which make us use it extensively, on top of all this no cost for sending messages or chatting. Cool thing about this is to add variety of Emojis for flavour. Latest release also helps you choose the skin colour which you might feel comfortable with. Have you checked it or not? They have about 5 shades to choose from depending on which part of the world you are from, i.e. in case you wish to choose.

Let's deal with some of the features one by one.

Chatting: today a lot is said by using the right emoji of WhatsApp than typing, Imagine quizzes n puzzles are being designed using the emoji's and it is a big pass time for the users, un-raveling the mystery of the emoji based questions.

Photos: There is a whole lot of pictures (700 Million at the last count) being shared everyday on WhatsApp. Range of pictures is left to one's imagination, it could be a cute new born to a cartoon to a Good morning picture with a bunch flowers in the back ground. We Indians love to share the God's images in plenty. Erotic pictures too get shared in the process like other pictures.

Videos: Today if there is one place where you need not worry about copyright violation and share a video it is only on WhatsApp, however there are or some constraints on the file size, however that might be changed in the near future. Talent shows, News stories, Sexual videos to speeches and discourses of Guru's are all shared on this platform. Biggest worry is the lack of monitoring on the content unlike in the case of a computer (Parental Control) makes the viewing of sexual videos on WhatsApp easy and this is a threatening feature.

Voice Chat: This is one feature which helped 'Wechat' app to establish it's presence, however once

this was introduced in WhatsApp, it took the steam away from their campaign. This actually helps when you want your kid to respond to some wishes or a grand parent Who cant type on a smart phone.

Groups: Unlike in Facebook, WhatsApp groups help people to connect more instantly since smart phones have become part and parcel of our lives. There are any number of innumerable variety of groups. I myself have set up multiple family groups, simply choosing how wide you want the audience to be. Family, Friends, Alumni of College/ School, Job, Association you name it, people have groups being formed and enjoying the fellowship. It has actually helped connecting the disconnected lot.

We do see some amount of misuse of this group feature by people, who want to carry out marketing activities. One way is blocking such people and reporting them so that WhatsApp can take care of them at their end. Today group membership is restricted to a maximum of 100.

Voice Calling: This is the most disliked feature of this app by the telecom companies. The moment WhatsApp announced this feature, telecom companies increased their voice, which they didn’t when the same feature was available on Viber, Hangouts 

etc, simply because it was not threatening their income. WhatsApp calling after the initial glitches has picked up clarity and is being extensively used. WhatsApp has even come up with, low bandwidth enabling so that you can talk even on 2G bandwidth and not just Wi-Fi broadband.

Broadcast: This is a feature meant to make announcements, send out wedding/event invites to many (256 people) at one go from your contact list. Only requirement is the recipient should have you in their contact list, otherwise, this message will not get delivered. This is in a way good red-herring, so that people don’t misuse this feature for marketing activities. Any message sent through 'Broadcast' will be delivered like a regular message, with , ,  markings to tell you whether the message you sent has been seen, read etc.

Web.whatsapp.com: This is a feature to integrate PC/Laptop with your phone so that you don’t miss out on WhatsApp activity. This is particularly convenient when you want to send some attachments from your computer, which you do not wish to have on your phone. Integration is a simple procedure, however for this feature to work effectively phone has to be connected by Wi-Fi with your PC.

With WhatsApp, even senior citizens are getting into the play. My 74 year old mother, shops sarees for her business when the supplier sends the images by WhatsApp, similarly she sends the images for those who seek to buy from her. Marriage proposals have been made, by sharing pictures & profiles on WhatsApp. Medical reports including X ray images are shared on WhatsApp. Uses are left to your imagination these are just but few examples. You would be commonly hearing people telling take a picture and send it on WhatsApp.

Thanks to WhatsApp voyeurism has increased with sexual videos, pictures being shared rampantly, the convenience of viewing in privacy, sharing without any worry etc make this app a handy one for the youth and those who are young in mind. This indeed is a worrying factor.

WhatsApp is seriously concerned about the user, their recent version includes a 'Mute' option for silencing notifications, in case you find a person or a group sending you too many messages and you don’t want to get disturbed at your work. This problem is faced in a different way when you have members of your group living in USA, your constant messaging disturbs their sleep due to time difference.

Similarly, it doesn’t encourage spamming, if you try to send messages to too many numbers from your phone, where you are not listed in their contact list, automatically you will be barred from using WhatsApp for a period of 4 hours and if you continue to do it, then your number could be deactivated for WhatsApp activity.

This is an effort to share info which might be useful for many who use WhatsApp but don’t know about many of the features in it. We will talk about WhatsApp emojis in my next blog.