WhatsApp Web has evolved and this one is very consequential: simply, you do not need to have your phone linked anymore to chat via WhatsApp web. And if you install the WhatsApp Desktop, you will never need Skype for anything. Why? WhatsApp Web now supports advanced chatting and phone calls via your laptops and desktops.
The implication is huge: if you use WhatsApp Web or the desktop version, you can “wmail” – I am making that up for messages sent via WhatsApp Web or WhatsApp Desktop. By partially unbundling WhatsApp web from phone, Meta (yes, Facebook) is going after Zoom. This is a major disintermediation to the traditional email system provided you have the person’s WhatsApp contact. Most Zoom scheduling begins at WhatsApp; now, that video call can happen at WhatApp.
Expect them to offer slideshow support in the next coming months. Magically, everything Zoom and Microsoft Teams currently do will be available via your WhatsApp Desktop. The main difference now is that your phone sync to WhatsApp Web/Desktop is the logging you need in Zoom and Teams.
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Possibly, WhatsApp web and WhatsApp desktop could offer a clear path for monetizing WhatsApp by Meta, at a deeper level. By moving things to the big screen, besides advertising, subscription is now evidently possible now for enterprise users who may need this service besides chats.
LinkedIn Comment on Feed
Comment 1: The competition has always been about who can keep customers on their platform longer. The more value users get on a platform, the longer they’ll stay. WhatsApp’s primary drawback was their overdependcy on the mobile application which was an advantage years ago, but has been hit by this new work-from-anywhere economy where users now want seamless transitions between all their devices wherever they choose to work from.
To point out though, WhatsApp is already being monetized through the Business APIs available for enterprises that allows them provide personalized and improved customer engagements:
Comment 2: That space is no longer a blue ocean where you go in and try things out, for Whatsapp to become a force there, it has to offer something better, with thrilling experience; right now it doesn’t feel like it’s close to doing that.
For Zuckerberg to play the subscription game at scale would be like swimming against the tide, because he made his name from freemium, which the world appreciated at the beginning, but now feels he’s constituting a good degree of nuisance. Nobody has ever satisfied people of the world, not even Jesus Christ.
Meta’s empire is already scary in its current state, so angling for mass adoption in market spaces where winners and laggards are more or less known, is not going to end in praises.
Zoom is the verb that owns the video call space at enterprise level, Microsoft and Google are having some shouts, others are in the also-ran league, and Whatsapp is coming to join the queue…
My Response: WhatsApp does not need to be as good as Zoom to thrive. The strategy is this: have the one oasis and try to be good in many things to reduce the churn, and keep your customers with you. So, provided WhatsApp video is good enough, that it is not great is irrelevant.
Comment 3: I do think, there is nothing possible, right?
But when considering going into a space, market, or ex ecosystem that is different from the very strategy that a company has laid, it is sometimes difficult or completely impossible, hence a complete overhaul of the existing design, strategy, or/and tactics might need to be done.
Following what Francis Oguaju said in his comment, I agree with him. The space is a Red ocean for WhatsApp. And with some features and the perception that Whatsapp has at hand, for me, it makes it impossible for me to believe it can compete in that space. It has to change a lot of things or completely change to make it possible for it.
I would leave the features to everyone’s information, which I believe we know.
Comment 4: I think WhatsApp is going after Telegram. With more than 500 million monthly active users, WhatsApp should be bothered by their obviously superior technology.
On Telegram, you can have video calls with an unlimited amount of people for an unlimited duration and the data consumption is very low.
Also, Telegram has always allowed users to connect an unlimited amount of devices to their accounts.
Telegram is cloud-based so you don’t lose your content even when you change your device. So you don’t get that ‘memory-full’ message that WhatsApp is notorious for.
Telegram is king o. It combines messaging with social excellently. I guess its only limitation is that it’s Russian.
Comment 5: The way a brand is positioned in the mind of users is very important.
WhatsApp can’t beat Zoom at the game of video conferencing; the brand was positioned to offer free chatting and data call services and that’s what we know her for.
Zoom on the other hand is premium video conferencing – I’ll subscribe to always have a team meeting for this service.
According to Prof. John Gourville, many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally over value the new, for new entrants to stand a chance they can’t be just better, they must be nine times better.”
The bar is high because old habit die hard and requires a lot to shake users out of old routines.
GoogleMeet should be asked how market? by WhatsApp before rolling this playbook.
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That space is no longer a blue ocean where you go in and try things out, for Whatsapp to become a force there, it has to offer something better, with thrilling experience; right now it doesn’t feel like it’s close to doing that.
For Zuckerberg to play the subscription game at scale would be like swimming against the tide, because he made his name from freemium, which the world appreciated at the beginning, but now feels he’s constituting a good degree of nuisance. Nobody has ever satisfied people of the world, not even Jesus Christ.
Meta’s empire is already scary in its current state, so angling for mass adoption in market spaces where winners and laggards are more or less known, is not going to end in praises.
Zoom is the verb that owns the video call space at enterprise level, Microsoft and Google are having some shouts, others are in the also-ran league, and Whatsapp is coming to join the queue…