rumour Google negotiating $ 1 billion purchase of WhatsApp

[leesmithg]

I looked at the O2 UK website and indeed in your country you get unlimited messages with almost every contract, that's very likely the reason you never heard of it. When you pay 20 cents for every message and you send thousands you quickly start to look to alternatives.

I don't use a cell phone either!

[neufuse Veteran]

I'd never heard of it til today. No one I know has it. Maybe is an American thing.

I live in the USA and almost everyone I know has a smart phone, and I've never heard of this before today and obviously never seen anyone with it either

[McKay]

I don't have it, till I read this article I never heard of it before.

I say sell now before google change their mind and buy windows live messenger.

Even though Im from the UK and get unlimited texts, overseas texts aren't free, neither are MMS's. So I use it for those.

[Detection]

First off, how the hell is it worth 1 Billion. Second WTF.

Didn't Facebook buy Instagram for a similar amount ?

[Growled Member]

I live in the USA and almost everyone I know has a smart phone, and I've never heard of this before today and obviously never seen anyone with it either

Plus I have unlimited texting on my smartphone plan since it's a feature I use for my job as well as personal.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Problem with SMS is the trivial snooping cell providers can do on your texts. Friend of mine works for a telco and he told me of a time where he was watching employees in the call centre screening text messages being sent by customers.

Which coincidentally was a problem WhatsApp had before when they were sending unencrypted messages.

[hagjohn]

Never heard of whatsapp before this article.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Been using it about 3 years now on my mobile. My main reason for keeping it is the easy sending of images to friends, as opposed to paying MMS fees here in the UK. Also it's great for keeping in contact with friends when abroad and on travels. Most contracts don't allow free roaming/texting, so just finding a wifi spot and being able to text is great.