Whatsapp, a OTT (Over The Top) mobile messenger service, which has already gained a good amount of popularity, pcmag.com gave it an excellent rating. In India it looks like the app has gone viral within the last few months, leaving behind other messenger apps.
On 22 August 2012, it crossed 10 Billion total messages, you can read the complete news here on NDTV Gadgets, And even crossed 100 Million download mark on google play store, it seems like a new alternative for SMS, fast and cheap, as it is lightweight and works even on a simple GPRS data network.
It has been increasing concerns among telecom service providers, Reliance Mobile has made some deal with the Whatsapp guys, providing special packs for college students, full story here on TheNextWeb. The main concern that has been raised is, it has become an alternative to voice as well.
The main core commerce of any telecom provider is being a voice carrier, then comes in the SMS stuff and then the others.
Whatsapp is just one thing, we don’t know what more the future got up its sleeves, but the telecom providers need to roll up theirs and start thinking about Internet and the data packs, its something they seriously need to focus on , Facebook launched its mobile app way back, but that didn’t affect much, but now we have messengers like Skype and Whatsapp, and Whatsapp has its share of competitors like ebuddy xms, kakao talk, viber, etc. and they have millions of users as well.
Telecom providers need to start planning on providing better internet data packs (not only 2G, 3G as well.) to their consumers, if they want to scale and grow up. As Stacey Higginbotham mentioned on GigaOm, they need to see whats Next.
For the users, there are quiet a few things that they need to take care of while using, messenger apps like whatsapp, do not share your personal info, bank details over messengers, there are reports of security issues with whatsapp, you can read it here on The H Secutity.
Authentication security and plain text data transmission issues are something, which can cost you big time. Always stay prepared, make sure you know the immediate steps to take in case your mobile is stolen, lost or you feel it has been hacked or hijacked.
Photo Source: nicoframes
