WhatsApp is known to be a messaging service that is straightforward with no gimmicks. But things are changing.
The popular app is introducing a radical update to its app, turning itself for the first time into a platform for passively consuming content, similar to Facebook that owned it, and also Instagram.
The feature that is rolled out on February 20th, 2017, won't change WhatsApp's original status updates that are shown next to user's name and profile picture. What the update does, is introducing a new tab that will take users straight to a list of updates from other friends and family. They can reply to statuses by tapping the reply button, which will be sent as a new WhatsApp message.
It allows users to share photos, animated GIF pictures or videos with overlaid drawings, emojis and captions. The status that users made, will only be visible to selected friends for 24 hours, before disappearing.
This is a mimic Snapchat's Stories which has similar feature. Launched in 2014 by Snapchat, the feature became popular as it allows users to share ephemeral contents to their timelines.
The update is a big change for WhatsApp because the service is seen as the hub of many people's messaging activity. Users use WhatsApp to simply message others, not scrolling endlessly through streams like Facebook or Instagram.
The Status feature will change how users will use WhatsApp for the first time. From Facebook’s perspective, adding stories to WhatsApp represents a strategic effort to limit Snapchat's growth in the market.
Facebook has been able to get billion of dollars in revenue from advertisers that are willing to insert ads into its content-heavy News Feed. The Status feature on WhatsApp has the potential to do the same, unless WhatsApp sticks to its founders' initial plan.
Jan Koum and his co-founder Brian Acton have been against advertising on WhatsApp since its early days, but in terms monetizing their app, there is no apparent ways other than this strategy.
Facebook's Messenger for example, has been persuading advertisers by using bots to chat with users. WhatsApp has experimented with bots in a hope to do the same, but it didn't work out since the service didn't have a way to display contents.
"As a utility, we're focused on building features that will be used around the world by our 1.2 billion users," said a WhatsApp spokesperson. "Over time, we've seen a big uptick in users sharing rich content, such as photos, videos and GIFs on WhatsApp. We wanted to offer an simple, secure, and reliable way for people to share this type of content with all their contacts at once."
The feature is being launched for users using Android, iOS and Windows.