22:55
evalample
“We don’t want to be a social network or a gaming
platform”
Brian Acton and Jan Koum insist their messaging app is viable because they do not carry advertising
Rosa Jiménez Cano San Francisco 19 MAY
2013 - 21:37 CET
There are no trolleys laden with food or colorful drinks. Forget about yoga
classes and massages, too. There is just a small table with a few snacks at the
entrance. Unlike so many offices in Silicon Valley, next to San Francisco Bay,
there is no space here for striking a pose. The founders sit at the same tables
as their employees, surrounded by graffiti in the middle of which appears the
company logo: WhatsApp. But from the street you would never know. It’s hard to
find this building in Mountain View even with the address; the only name visible
on the outside is that of a firm which makes sleeves for Apple devices. Yet we
are in the heart of the valley, near the headquarters of Cisco, Google and
Facebook.
What WhatsApp has are more than 200 million users. Brian Acton (born in the
USA, 1972) and Jan Koum (Ukraine, 1976) are hardly typical examples of the local
species of entrepreneur. They are no longer crazy kids and their motto is to
steer clear of all that is inessential. Their application WhatsApp, launched in
2009, has sent the SMS to the graveyard. Every day 40 people oversee the sending
of nine billion messages and the receipt of 15 billion, the second figure being
higher due to group messaging.
Koum had the idea. Acton joined the project soon after. In February 2009 the
first version was launched. Then it was just a status application for iPhone,
which issued warning that someone was not available at that moment through a
preset message: “Don’t call me,” “I’m sleeping,” or “I’m at work…” They saw its
potential and changed course. That summer they set to work on making it into the
messaging service it is today. That was when Acton left his job at Yahoo! and
joined up, not just as an employee but also as an investor. The team swelled to
five people at the same time as they began to charge 99 cents for the app.
At the start of 2010, they took another step forward with the arrival of
Nokia and Android smartphones. The team doubled to 10, and then again at the
beginning of 2011 when WhatsApp for Blackberry was launched. At times they give
the impression of being a couple of game show contestants, talking sotto
voce and passing the questions between them: “This one’s for you, it’s your
area.”
Question. How is it that a service with so many users seems
so mysterious?
Jan Koum. We haven’t bothered too much about our image, but
rather that of our users and we’re proud of that. We’re a technology
company.
Q. In which countries do you have the most customers?
J. K. We try not to look at a single country. We offer a
global product which has to work well in Brazil, India, Germany, Russia and
Canada. Countries like Brazil and India are where we are growing most because
they are getting more and more smartphones.
Q. What is your perception of Spain?
J. K. Spain is one of our most heavily used countries. We
put a lot of effort into making sure our service is good there, like the
translation on the app and the website.
Q. What is the next thing we will be able to send on
WhatsApp?
Brian Acton. We’re going to focus on enriching the
experience. The example I use is color television, and the SMS is black and
white. We can’t reveal what we haven’t released yet but we never think we’re
done.
Q. Some people complain they get loads of messages and
alerts and it distracts them.
J. K. We’re the first company where you can silence alerts.
In fact, we patented that. You can mute a group or a chat. You can also put a
specific tone to a person to distinguish their messages. I know that with phone
conversations and messaging going on, it can get a bit chatty. But we focus a
lot on making sure our application is one of scales.
Q. But isn’t it invasive that you can receive a message from
anyone?
J. K. This is not new for WhatsApp. If you know someone’s
number, you can send them an SMS. We based our system on that service when we
created WhatsApp and it seemed natural.
B. A. A lot of operators do not permit you to block incoming
calls or messages from a particular number. We do. That’s the reason why some
people have to change phone when they break up with their partner for
example.
Q. Is WhatsApp free and how long will I have to pay for
it?
B. A. It’s not free. We believe the best business is where
the customer is the user and the customer is not the product. We can hear our
users and improve our product better this way. I had a very bad experience in my
previous workplace and ended up very fed up with advertising. We think one
dollar a year is a reasonable price and we want the iPhone business to match the
Android business.
Q. Is your service viable for one dollar a year?
B. A. Yes, we don’t pay for TV or celebrity endorsements [in
reference to Line.] We rely on our active user base to recommend the
service.
Q. Will you ever have advertising?
J. K. We are pretty clear on this. I mean, would you like
advertising on WhatsApp? We wouldn’t. We want messaging to be as simple and easy
as possible. We don’t want our application to be a social network or a gaming
network, but a messaging network. Your phone itself is very personal to you. You
wake up, you look at your phone. You go to sleep, you check your phone. We want
to be purely about messaging.
Q. At what times do you see the greatest activity?
B. A. When there are things going on that relate to personal
interests like soccer, when there is a big match, for example. So it’s big
sporting events and royal weddings, but also world events, great natural
disasters or security threats. New Year’s is also a great day for us.
Q. As it used to be for telephone operators. Are you aware
of the damage you have done to their business?
J. K. It’s natural evolution in the way people communicate.
You can make an argument that SMS replaced calls, which replaced telegraphs,
which replaced people delivering messages on horses and carrier pigeons. The
human desire to communicate and stay in touch is fundamental to our
civilization. We live in a free market and people choose the best way to
communicate.
Q. Are we going to see a computer version?
B. A. Our product plans are not something we talk about
publicly. A computer is a way to communicate and it’s something we think about.
But there’s still not much we can tell you about how it might work.
Q. Will there be a version for the Firefox operating
system?
J. K. That is not in our plans, at the moment.
Q. If I change phone, how can I keep my messages?
J. K. If you back up do a full back up to ITunes. All your
messages and everything you keep should be there.
Q. What phone do you use?
J. K. A Nexus 4 and a Blackberry.
B. A. A HTC One and a Nokia con a keyboard; I like a
keyboard phone and that is getting hard to find.
Q. Where are my messages stored and how secure are they?
B. A. Since we are not an advertising-driven company, our
goal is to know as little about the customer as possible. We don’t ask people
their gender, their birthday, where they live or what their spending habits are.
Once a message has been delivered to a device and acknowledged as successfully
delivered, we don’t keep them.
Q. What do the little green check marks mean?
B. A. One means it has been received by our server. The
double check mark means it has been delivered to the receiver’s phone. It
doesn’t mean it has been read, just delivered.
Q. How much do you compress images?
J. K. Just what’s necessary to strike a balance between
speed and quality. If someone wants to send a large image, for storage purposes,
then there is email. WhatsApp is for direct communication and not to send
20-mega photos. We use techniques to compress and resize it so you get a
good-quality image on your phone.
Q. What do you think of competitors such as Line?
J. K. How can there be a free product; what makes it free?
There must be a hidden cost. Something can be free for a time, but not for ever.
People realize that the no games-or-gimmick philosophy is a price worth
paying.
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