Ads for WhatsApp?

I was listening to Fox Business over the noon hour. Apparently Google is going to try to monetize WhatsApp with ads, but they haven’t figured out how to do it. Ideas being circulated are an annual subscription and/or “targeted ads” that will pop up in your message stream.

Thoughts?

Conversation 5 comments

  • karlinhigh

    Premium Member
    17 January, 2020 - 3:16 pm

    <p>How could they have "targeted ads" without compromising WhatsApp's selling point of end-to-end encryption?</p><p><br></p><p>And, didn't WhatsApp have a subscription somehow before Facebook bought it? Wikipedia says it was $1 per year with the first year being free.</p>

    • bob_shutts

      17 January, 2020 - 5:47 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#514059"><em>In reply to karlinhigh:</em></a><em> "</em>How could they have "targeted ads" without compromising WhatsApp's selling point of end-to-end encryption?" </blockquote><blockquote>Exactly.</blockquote><p><br></p>

    • anoldamigauser

      Premium Member
      07 February, 2020 - 11:19 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#514059">In reply to karlinhigh:</a></em></blockquote><p>If the app is on your phone, they have all the information they need to target ads without needing to read your message stream.</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    18 January, 2020 - 2:40 am

    <p>Don't you mean Facebook? WhatsApp is a Facebook property.</p>

    • bob_shutts

      18 January, 2020 - 2:27 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#514126"><em>In reply to wright_is:</em></a><em> You are correct. I was listening to one of those roundtables where everybody talks at once. FaceBook, Amazon, and Google were being thrown around the discussion all at the same time.</em></blockquote><p><br></p>

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