We all knew this day would come soon. The days of enjoying an ad-free WhatsApp messaging experience will soon be over as parent company Facebook tries to find ways to monetize the app. Vice President Chris Daniels confirmed the rumor that they will let brands use the status feature as space for advertisements soon. This will be the first time that we’ll be seeing ads on the popular messaging platform but of course this was an inevitable course of action for the social media giant.
Ever since Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion four years ago, it was only a matter of time until we saw ads here, given all that we know about Mark Zuckerberg and his company. In fact, co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton left the company when it became clear that the company was planning to monetize on the current 1.5 billion users worldwide. They were obviously not happy with that and so the decision was made to leave the company they started.
Earlier in October, there were some rumors that the way WhatsApp would finally introduce ads in the platform was through the status section. This feature lets users post text, photos, videos, and animated GIFs and now this would supposedly allow brands to place their ads and reach the users that they have been targeting.
Daniels confirms that will be what’s happening next for the messaging app. He also stated that this would be the primary monetization mode for the brand moving forward. They consider this an “opportunity for businesses to reach people on WhatsApp.” But no specific timeline was given for this next move.
As to how it would look like on the messaging app itself, we still have no idea for now. Ads on the status are probably better and less disruptive than seeing them in your conversations or other parts of WhatsApp. Let’s wait for further developments on this story.
VIA: Outlook India
