Facebook's 19 Billion Dollar Purchase

Recently, Facebook decided to make a big purchase, a 19 billion dollar one to be exact.  Facebook decided to purchase WhatsApp due to the volume of active users that it services.  The reason behind this big spending spree is that "450 million active monthly users, 70 percent of whom use the messaging service daily," send enough messages to reach the equivalent amount in the number of text messages sent out around the world daily.

Although Facebook is buying WhatsApp, according to CEO Jan Koum, the app will remain autonomous and operate independently of Facebook and nothing will change for users."  According to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, WhatsApp will complement [Facebook's] existing chat and messaging services to provide for new tools for our community.

So what's the big deal?  Facebook just hit it's 10 year anniversary and now they've made a big deal with WhatsApp.  Personally, I don't see how this would be any different than their current Facebook messenger. With WhatsApp, like Facebook messenger, you can only reach out to those that have the app.  However, with WhatsApp you are able to customize your chat backgrounds and text, which is different from Facebook messenger.  I'm interested in seeing how this deal is helpful to Facebook if nothing is changing for the users. What are the differences and changes that will help to improve Facebook?  I guess we will soon find out.

If you want to learn more about Facebook's latest purchase visit the the following article.