WhatsApp, this is how it started and this is how it is

The commotion caused by the controversies blue WhatsApp tickswhich indicate whether our messages have been read, leads us to analyze how this application began and how it has evolved to become an essential communication tool that has ostracized SMS.

The story of WhatsApp It began in an almost bizarre way. Its founder, Jan Koum, is a Ukrainian who emigrated with his mother to California in the early 90s. to escape anti-Semitic pressure in the former Soviet republic. The young Koum learned computer science through the books he rented from a bookstore, which helped him enter the University of San José.

In 1997, without finishing his studies, he got a job at Yahoo, where he met Brian Acton, who would later become co-founder of WhatsApp. The idea for the app came about in 2009, after Koum I will buy an iPhone and realized the great potential that 'apps' held.

Koum considered WhatsApp – a play on the phrase What's Up? – as a tool associated with contacts in the phone book to indicate the user's situation (I'm at home, I'm going to the movies,…).

Shortly after, he realized that people were using WhatsApp to exchange messages for free using iOS push notifications. Thus they could do without SMS and the expense that these caused.

Up to 600 million users

So things are, decided to launch a version focused on instant messaging instead of in the states, which skyrocketed the number of users and was the seed of the expansion of the tool, until reaching the more than 600 million users that is currently in the world.

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Soon, thanks to word of mouth, users from other terminals also began to demand the application, so Koum requested the help of his old friend Acton to start a business and develop WhatsApp versions for different operating systems.

Although it started out free, the need to cover costs and achieve profits without resorting to advertising (both Koum and Acton believe that inserting ads could ruin their golden goose) made it become in a paid application at a reasonable annual price.

Among the most striking new features that have been introduced WhatsApp In recent times, the voice message sending option using a specific button on the writing bar. In addition to the blue 'ticks', it has recently enabled the possibility of taking photos and send them instantly, allowing you to insert a message into the images.

All this has contributed to the massive success of WhatsApp, which, despite the fierce competition from other messaging systems similar like Line or Telegram or some complementary applications, remains the most used 'app' of this type. This explains why Facebook decided to spend the chilling figure of 13.8 billion euros to acquire 'Jan Koum's American dream' for the chilling figure of 13.8 billion euros.