[tinochiko]

You mean like it did when they released stickers...

Posted via CB10

In some developing markets yes, but I'm talking about a sustainable rise not just because they've got something new then in a couple weeks it goes down again.. a sustained increase..

TechCraze C0008DDD1

[tinochiko]

Ok. The beginning of this thread is very confusing.

1. Why does BB need two apps? I don't get that. They would be laughed at more. Does WhatsApp have a separate app for groups?

2. The numbers were very confusing at the beginning of the thread. It was 20 BILLION messages sent from 450 Million active users. That's 44 messages sent per user per day. Not that surprising. It should not matter how many people received it. I think they just wanted to bump the number and make it seem massive when it really isn't. It's just kind of normal. WhatsApp has a lot of users. Plain and simple.

3. BBM just started out cross platform. Give it time. If it doesn't suit you then don't use it. I use it. I use it to call my sisters in England. One has an iPhone even. Call quality is great.

4. To answer the question in the title. It may never catch up. BBM just needs to grab a piece of the pie and monetize it. If it can get to a point where BlackBerry is making good money doing it then they just have to keep themselves in the game. If they can ever surpass WhatsApp it would probably take a miracle of sorts. Perhaps a really destructive security issue or a complete worldwide meltdown. It won't be that easy.

-1 I asssmue you mean bbm not BlackBerry, I was and have made a suggestion that groups should be a separate app for a number of reasons, did people laugh when fb made a seperate app for chat? Whatsapp group and bbm groups shouldn't really be compared (as I've said in a previous post) it's more comparable to multiperson chat on bbm, bbm groups does so much more than whatsapp with calender sync, list taking etc.

-2 the site is the one that printed that headline, whatsapp tweeted the seperate figures, it's reported because it's the biggest ever recorded figure for them yes there's a play at numbers, but isn't there always? The average person in the street won't analyse like that..

-3 time is of the essence, I use bbm and don't use whatsapp much so this is more for others that use whatsapp? But I would say that as it's been said mistakes right now are very costly for them, they need to be doing everything they can to improve the service as fast as possible, are they? It's hard to know but it doesn't feel like it.. so many bugs..

-4 like I said before what's better, charging a smaller userbase more or charging a bigger userbase less? If BlackBerry really want to stay relevant they need to be on par or overtake whatsapp in terms of users, thiis would have a knock on effect on device sales for BlackBerry just because people will be talking about BlackBerry more because of bbm. Nothing worth doing is easy

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[tinochiko]

Sadly, I think cross-platform BBM arrived at the party a little too late. Whatsapp got into the cross platform messenger game on the ground floor. After BBM went cross platform, I really held out great hope for it and encouraged many of my old BBM contacts who went to iOS and Android as well as many other contacts to download and use BBM. The initial momentum was great but since that time, it has really waned. About 2/3 of my cross platform BBM contacts have uninstalled BBM and I am back down to a handful of contacts.

The question is how can they regain and maintain a sustained growth, how can they be one of those first apps that people install, one thing they're doing which will help is deals with andorid to come p reinstalled but if people don't know the benefits they'll just delete it. Whatsapp is one of the first apps downloaded when people get a smartphone, BlackBerry needs to make bbm like that, so more people WANT to download it, have a reason to..

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[tinochiko]

Really? I find it very huge and likely overestimated.
I use BBM and can't imagine myself sending so many messages on a daily basis. If I want to really chat then I will make a phone call. Do you guys communicate through IM that much?

Posted via CB10

I use bbm mainly and I sent way more than 90 messages on a given day (though it varies) there's millions of users we can assume just because a few people here don't meet that average that none of the rest do, when I used whatsapp mainly i sent about that amount of messages, remember a lot of teenagers using these apps they'll be sending messages every two seconds..

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[lynxs_claw]

Yes, that's easy.

It all has to do with the ease-of-use of contact discovery. When you install WhatsApp, it imports your contact list, and any WhatsApp user is matched up via phone number and made into a WhatsApp contact for you automatically. For most users, simply installing the app automatically gives them 20-100 WhatsApp contacts, and all of those contacts instantly see that they are now on WhatsApp as well.

This makes it so easy to use WhatsApp that people recommend it to their friends, who are delighted to find so many contacts on it when they install it, so they recommend it to their friends, and so on.

I know many BB people don't like this model, because they value their privacy too much, but most of BB's privacy/security really hurts BB in the consumer market, where ease-of-use and customer satisfaction is FAR more important, especially for something like a messaging app, which is only valuable when a significant portion of the people YOU care about are using it too.

This has long been a problem for BB, and one that is rarely talked about here, which is that the things that enterprises value (security, privacy, restrictions) are the OPPOSITE of what the consumer market wants, and by trying to satisfy both, BB often satisfies neither. This is why Chen has accepted letting go of the consumer market in North America and Europe - he needs to focus on enterprises, and there's very little synergy between enterprise and consumer features.

Sorry, but hard to believe this reason also.. WhatsApp been doing this for years and now has double their user membership to the tune of 200+ million users in the last measly 6 months? don't think so.. Its not like the app has now revolutionary features (like video chat with screen share, glympse, and stickers ) that makes you crave to put it on your mobile device... believe what you want to believe. Money makes the world go around and I'm more apt to believe that it's embellished news to increase the Facebook stock.

And if you don't believe me, "I got some land in Florida I'd like you to buy"

Posted via CB10

[decoy7]

Enough with the "late to the party" nonsense. By that metric, no company should ever try to make a competing product or service...ever... as they'll be late and there's already a dominant player or two, or 3... Whether BBM gains traction or not is yet to be seen but it won't be because it's "late".

Posted via CB10

BBM was the dominant player, whatsapp was the competing product that came from nowhere to beat them at their own game...now BBM is trying to compete after the event...so they're very "late to the party", description fits perfectly for me.

Q10 SQN100-3/10.2.1.1925

[badiyee]

BBM was the dominant player, whatsapp was the competing product that came from nowhere to beat them at their own game...now BBM is trying to compete after the event...so they're very "late to the party", description fits perfectly for me.

Q10 SQN100-3/10.2.1.1925

By that logic many companies, including Apple and Harvey Davidson should have suffered the same fate.

#Amidoingthisright?

Posted via CB on BB10

[iN8ter]

Whatsapp has a VERY, VERY weird tiered, multi-level-priviledged system. I'm not sure if I can compress what I understand, but here' what I knew.

Back in 2008/9 when this Whatsapp was firstly available and then introduced to iOS, and later Android, and later to BBOS and other platforms, it was FREE for iOS but wasn't for other platforms.

Then later, if I recall correctly, WhatsApp did inked deals with certain telcos so that telcos would use WhatsApp as their SMS services and things like that . WhatsApp also inked other deals as well.

But back on the platform front, iOS users were always subsidized.What I noticed within my family was this.

iOS= free for life. (and still standing)
Android=free for first year, paid for next year onwards.
BlackBerry=free for 3 months, paid for next year onwards.
WP = no data (no one in my family used that)

and so I was thinking it made no logic to have the iOS users not paying, but the BlackBerry and Android users paying.

So as much, I knew that there were groups of people offering free services of swapping sim cards so that whatsapp thought that these devices swithed to iOS, and then these accounts became from "free 1st year, pay from next year onwards" became "permanently free for the rest of life".

But I don't have new data from 2013 onwards. Did not actively read into them.

WhatsApp as not free on iOS. They've had promotions to give the app away, but that's about it. It was a one time payment instead of a subscription, which is not free. It's just cheaper over the long term (you need 2 years of use to see any savings and the savings are so small that it's ignorable, because the service cost is too cheap to care).

Also, when they launched on Android they basically extended the free period for years before they actually required people to pay.

[iN8ter]

Maybe, just maybe, one day, people will realize that they don't want their info running like that. Hopefully, for BB's sake and theirs. Facebook, in the not so distant past, is something recruiters have and do look at for posting history and "personality". Whatsapp is the same thing. Install that number from the resume you just received and get the profile pic, status updates, and when they're online. Sweet... sign me up :s

Yes, they get more users, but soon, it just might be realized how "open" they are by doing so.

What Info? Phone Number and "Nickname" that you set yourself? That's it?

Have you seen a Phone Book (white Pages) lately?

[Troy Tiscareno]

Sorry, but hard to believe this reason also.. WhatsApp been doing this for years and now has double their user membership to the tune of 200+ million users in the last measly 6 months?

This is a chart for Facebook growth. Notice how it started with slow growth, and then, eventually it hit a point where growth started exploding? That's very common.

A year ago, WhatsApp was barely in the news - it was getting popular but it was under the radar. THIS year, WhatsApp has been in the news a LOT, because it was pulling ahead in the race. More news coverage = more awareness = faster growth, and, again, once something reaches a certain concentration, the network effects of people recommending it to friends causes an increase in adoption. You'd see this same curve for Myspace, Twitter, Instagram, and other "big" services.

Adoption curves like this are the NORM for successful, market-leading products, not the exception.

[badiyee]

WhatsApp as not free on iOS. They've had promotions to give the app away, but that's about it. It was a one time payment instead of a subscription, which is not free. It's just cheaper over the long term (you need 2 years of use to see any savings and the savings are so small that it's ignorable, because the service cost is too cheap to care).

Also, when they launched on Android they basically extended the free period for years before they actually required people to pay.

Hmm, interesting data. I need to re-check on this, since I think I'm out of the loop.

However, I think my point being that the service is multi-tiered is correct. I am not sure if I remember this correctly, but they are doing like what Skype is doing with local telcos (giving out deals on land lines), but whatsapp dealt with sms-es. I don't remember where, but it should be Hong Kong, in 2012.

[Loc22]

No, what it means is that any company that wants to be able to win some of WhatsApp's marketshare had better be VERY focused, do the basics EXTREMELY well, PLUS offer some feature or something that is clearly superior.

xBBM's rollout was a mess, and it is STILL very unreliable on Android and iOS in terms of getting messages on-time. Who wants to use a messenger that can't reliably send and receive messages? Once again, BB failed to execute well on the basics, and the more advanced features are meaningless if the basics aren't rock-solid.
.

I think most people don't really care if their messages get through to the other party or not as long as they think that the message has gone through it would be fine with them. My reasoning for this is simple.

Carriers cannot guarantee that SMS's will reach their recipients however it is very popular.
WhatsApp cannot inform you if the recipient is still a WhatsApp user or not, hence we really don't know if the intended recipient received my message or not. This is by far the most popular IM app.
BBM tells you that the intended user no longer use BBM, or the message is delayed, or that the message cannot be sent through. This app has been widely criticised as un-reliable.

[iN8ter]

I think most people don't really care if their messages get through to the other party or not as long as they think that the message has gone through it would be fine with them. My reasoning for this is simple.

Carriers cannot guarantee that SMS's will reach their recipients however it is very popular.
WhatsApp cannot inform you if the recipient is still a WhatsApp user or not, hence we really don't know if the intended recipient received my message or not. This is by far the most popular IM app.
BBM tells you that the intended user no longer use BBM, or the message is delayed, or that the message cannot be sent through. This app has been widely criticised as un-reliable.

SMS is not as popular as it used to be. It had an advantage in that it was a native service on the phone. BBM had a similar advantage because of Blackberrys market position and the fact that it was basically a native service. As other debices took over, that allowed apps like WhatsApp to conquer the market by not discriminating against platforms.

As people adopted more smartphones and the Internet allowed people to communicate with others far away more easily the advantages of sums eroded. Smartphone penetration is not 100pct so sms is still needed but it's being outpaced by mobile messaging apps. This is why it's been opened up by carriers now. Even Verizon gives free I ternary iona texting away now!

BBM was terrible when I tried it and now that they turned it I to another Facebook for Android app I won't give it another look. I like my messaging apps to do one thing... communication. I don't want social networks bolted onto them.

Channels is BB digging for revenue. They'd have never done that if their hardware wasn't doing so poorly in the market.

Also to think people don't care if their messages actually go through is a bit of a stretch. The carriers don't guarantee it but sms was a lot more reliable than BBM last time I tried it...

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

[lynxs_claw]

This is a chart for Facebook growth. Notice how it started with slow growth, and then, eventually it hit a point where growth started exploding? That's very common.

A year ago, WhatsApp was barely in the news - it was getting popular but it was under the radar. THIS year, WhatsApp has been in the news a LOT, because it was pulling ahead in the race. More news coverage = more awareness = faster growth, and, again, once something reaches a certain concentration, the network effects of people recommending it to friends causes an increase in adoption. You'd see this same curve for Myspace, Twitter, Instagram, and other "big" services.

Adoption curves like this are the NORM for successful, market-leading products, not the exception.

Ok so let's use your numbers on really the biggest social network company of all time. I've tried to average the largest rate of change of users with the Facebook data you provided in a space where Facebook was big in mobile and the pc markets; FB was a company that offered a very unique and first to market social networking infrastructure that literally took the world by storm (even made a movie about it). Whatsapp is a cross-platform messenger app in mobile space only in which there is competition that offer better or on par chat solutions; they even have many users from some major mobile manufacturers that just stick to using the messaging on their own platform (ie, Apple - iMessage and Android - ChatOn).

My calculation shows using your data that within six months, the best Facebook ever did in the PC & MOBILE markets were approx. 100 million users .. and I'm expected to believe this simple mobile messenger app which is popular only today on mobile and certainly not solely unique to other messenging apps was able to get 200 million users in the last six months...

I'm just saying don't believe everything you read.. the market has a pretty big influence on where and how they want their investments to grow....

[camoh2006]

Honestly, I have so many friends still using Whatsapp rather than BBM!

They say that it's much better just having the person in your contacts and they are there in your favourites ready to talk with. It's much easier than getting thieir pins and then having to accept eachother!

Posted via CB10

[bekkay]

Ok so let's use your numbers on really the biggest social network company of all time. I've tried to average the largest rate of change of users with the Facebook data you provided in a space where Facebook was big in mobile and the pc markets; FB was a company that offered a very unique and first to market social networking infrastructure that literally took the world by storm (even made a movie about it). Whatsapp is a cross-platform messenger app in mobile space only in which there is competition that offer better or on par chat solutions; they even have many users from some major mobile manufacturers that just stick to using the messaging on their own platform (ie, Apple - iMessage and Android - ChatOn).

My calculation shows using your data that within six months, the best Facebook ever did in the PC & MOBILE markets were approx. 100 million users .. and I'm expected to believe this simple mobile messenger app which is popular only today on mobile and certainly not solely unique to other messenging apps was able to get 200 million users in the last six months...

I'm just saying don't believe everything you read.. the market has a pretty big influence on where and how they want their investments to grow....

You are forgetting that the size of the mobile/smartphone market in general has also seen a huge increase in growth rates over the last few years (increase of ~more than 500% since 2010). So, the growth of the network is further accelerated by the growth of the market.

[Dave Bourque]

Honestly, I have so many friends still using Whatsapp rather than BBM!

They say that it's much better just having the person in your contacts and they are there in your favourites ready to talk with. It's much easier than getting thieir pins and then having to accept eachother!

Posted via CB10

It's also much easier for them to just rip your entire contact list off your phone.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

[lynxs_claw]

You are forgetting that the size of the mobile/smartphone market in general has also seen a huge increase in growth rates over the last few years (increase of ~more than 500% since 2010). So, the growth of the network is further accelerated by the growth of the market.

Still not buying.. if you want to make your point.. please provide the numbers.. fact not opinion..

[meltbox360]

A million users a day is kind of absurd. Facebook has 680 million active mobile users. This growth would mean whatsapp would outpace CURRENT Facebook mobile usage in the near future. That doesn't make sense unless they are counting tons of dormant accounts. In fact withing a year they would outpace total Facebook active users. Something doesn't really add up.

EDIT: As a side note none of my friends know what whatsapp is. That is excluding the ones I specifically asked what it was and then explained it to them.

[tinochiko]

Still not buying.. if you want to make your point.. please provide the numbers.. fact not opinion..

TechCraze C0008DDD1

[tinochiko]

A million users a day is kind of absurd. Facebook has 680 million active mobile users. This growth would mean whatsapp would outpace CURRENT Facebook mobile usage in the near future. That doesn't make sense unless they are counting tons of dormant accounts. In fact withing a year they would outpace total Facebook active users. Something doesn't really add up.

EDIT: As a side note none of my friends know what whatsapp is. That is excluding the ones I specifically asked what it was and then explained it to them.

I don't think it was consistent, just for that period of time, I'm sure a lot of companies see growth like that at some stage, why assume that that's the way it's will stay forever? It's bound to slow down at some point (I'm not saying the figures are absolute and reliable) just saying they're not implausible..

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[bekkay]

Still not buying.. if you want to make your point.. please provide the numbers.. fact not opinion..

You based your statement on the pre-2010 data. I said that the growth of the market has accelerated since then. What are you not buying? That smartphone sales went up from about 40-50 mill a quarter to almost 250 mill?

Here is the growth over the last year:

Gartner: Smartphone Sales Finally Beat Out Dumb Phone Sales Globally In 2013, With 968M Units Sold | TechCrunch

Note that it's addition to the installed user base rather than total number of users (less the attrition in the userbase).

I am not saying that this is the reason (may very well be a big factor though). I am saying that your calculations and reasoning that are based on growth rates in 2009 and 2010 numbers are not applicable to the recent developments in the market.

[tinochiko]

By that logic many companies, including Apple and Harvey Davidson should have suffered the same fate.

#Amidoingthisright?

Posted via CB on BB10

I think the point that's trying to be made there (or that I would try to make rather) is that the benefits of being late to something is theoretically you can see mistakes that have been made and accelerate your growth faster than those that have been there since the beginning, BlackBerry seems to not to be able to do this.. thus struggling whereas other companies have been able to establish dominance in the field by not making those mistakes.. e.g.

For users sake, BlackBerry could have seen that not having to 'hunt' for people you know 'what's your pin' etc and instead just having all the people you already have numbers for added to your bbm contacts was/is perceived as easier and desirable for the general consumer.. thus they could have added an option to put in your number when you sign up for a BBID when they went cross platform, and for those who wanted to, suggest friends using numbers, rather than just emails since people are more likely to have numbers than emails for individuals..

Satisfying it's core group by keeping it a choice..

Gaining customers who don't mind the number things
At the same time..

TechCraze C0008DDD1

[1REDRUM]

Blackberry users sent an average of 11.5 Messages a day...which means BlackBerry users send around 1 Billion Messages per day.



Posted via CB10

[lynxs_claw]

You based your statement on the pre-2010 data. I said that the growth of the market has accelerated since then. What are you not buying? That smartphone sales went up from about 40-50 mill a quarter to almost 250 mill?

Here is the growth over the last year:

Gartner: Smartphone Sales Finally Beat Out Dumb Phone Sales Globally In 2013, With 968M Units Sold | TechCrunch

Note that it's addition to the installed user base rather than total number of users (less the attrition in the userbase).

I am not saying that this is the reason (may very well be a big factor though). I am saying that your calculations and reasoning that are based on growth rates in 2009 and 2010 numbers are not applicable to the recent developments in the market.

Ok let's look at some more recent values:

According to more recent Facebook data (up to last year 2013), the growth rate is not increasing but has been the same year after year since 2010 so my average rate applied to Facebook user of ~100 million every 6 months still applies if you assume that WhatApp is experiencing the same growth (which I doubt since again Facebook is PC market AND MOBILE). See my tabulated excel graph and note my source:

Number of active users at Facebook over the years



If I use Mr. tinochiko posted graph.. it also shows constant growth.. not increasing:



So again, still finding WhatsApp number hard to believe...... hopefully I'm making myself very clear why I'm not buying it...