Facebook announced Wednesday, February 19, that they have
plans to buy the mobile messaging site WhatsApp. The company plans on buying
the app for up to $19 Billion. It is paying $12 Billion in Facebook stock, and
$4 Billion in cash for the messaging application. Finally, the app’s staff will
receive $4 Billion in restricted stock that will mature over the next four
years.
Here’s the kicker: it is the largest acquisition by a long
shot. Facebook only paid about $715.3 Million to buy out Instagram, as opposed
to the possible $19 Billion WhatsApp gets.
Facebook said they are keeping the app separate from the
other social networking sites, as it did with Instagram.
The recent buyout must have been largely due to the increased
amount of users WhatsApp has. WhatsApp has been bounding in users and message
counts since August 2012 and growing every month. The App currently has around 450 Million monthly active users.
Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg believes this
messaging app will continue to grow to a Billion users.
It will be interesting to see if/what will change now that
the buyout has taken place. In some ways Facebook seems to be taking over
social. Not that anybody seems to mind though. It doesn't seem like much has changed, yet we
have to ask – what is going to happen to our privacy when almost all of the social
platforms are owned by the same company? Does it matter?
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