Re:WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
by aylons on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @11:19PM
(#11625915)
Mostly small business literally typing on their phones. Really bizarre.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
It's funny to watch it, actually.
A company gives you their card information and there are a few things on it: the website URL, maybe an email, the address and a phone number, with the WhatsApp icon on the side!
When there are two numbers, they put the WhatsApp icon in one of them. They literally put another company's logo in their own contact info, because of how WhatsApp is so widespread!
There is something called web.whatsapp.com, if you don't know. Also, there are custom programs that will automatically answer whatsapp messages, like dealing with pizza orders, for instance, without any human intervention.
Yes, I know, use it everyday. Most small business in Brazil don't. And definitively no automated software. Also, all automated software for WhatsApp must rely on terrible hacks on the interface, as there's no supported API and WA is really aggressive against third-party clients.
I guess if this happens on a market where Whatsapp serves 10% of its entire user base, FB sees an opportunity to make back the billions it paid for it by offering a paid API to businesses.