9781422277331

W hatsApp is a messaging application that allows users to send text messages to one another for free across the globe, using a wifi connection rather than a cellular phone network. One of the interesting things about WhatsApp— whose name derives from the expression, “What’s up?”—is that many Americans have never heard of it. The global user base of WhatsApp is more than one billion, and yet the internet giant Face- book bought the company for a whopping $19 billion in 2014. How could that be? How could a property worth such a large amount of money to a very American company be an asset that most Ameri- cans are not familiar with? The answer lies in how WhatsApp delivers its services. At its core, WhatsApp is a simple messaging app. What differentiates it most—and yet makes it less critical to the everyday American—is that it sends messages over the internet. Is that groundbreaking technology? It might not seem so in the United States, where every phone network can connect with another one at no additional charge. Also, most mobile phone plans come with free unlimited text messaging as part of the package. However, internationally, as we’ll see, it’s quite a big deal indeed. So, where did this multi-billion-dollar company come from? Like any good Silicon Valley technology company story, WhatsApp had humble origins in the minds of two co-workers, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, at industrygiant Yahoo! The concept that the two founders arrived at was simple— they wanted an app that could help people communicate worldwide, without

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