Messaging app
Exploring an interesting piece of tech: When Apple launched push notifications, founder explored it for sharing status more proactively
App for showing statuses of your friends
Lukewarm interest
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-thoughts-about-my-free-iphone-app-whatsapp.html https://kariukiedwin.medium.com/the-accidental-rise-of-whatsapp-how-two-rejects-created-a-100-billion-company-9b35008b7e83
“WhatsApp launched in November 2009, offering status updates next to contacts in your address book. Usage was free, with no ads. The app only attracted a few hundred users. But worse, it constantly crashed due to bugs. After a few months of struggles, Koum considered abandoning WhatsApp and looking for a new job. In June 2009, Apple announced a major new feature for developers: push notifications. This allowed apps to send real-time alerts directly to users, without needing the app to be open. Koum realized WhatsApp could leverage push notifications in a clever way. When someone updated their status, it would push a notification to their contacts. This sparked an insight: What if they made statuses more conversational, like text messages? In August 2009, WhatsApp 2.0 launched with push notifications for status updates. Koum built up a system allowing statuses to be replies, initiating messaging chains. Some early WhatsApp users began using statuses playfully, exchanging jokes and messages. Almost by accident, WhatsApp had become a messaging app.” —The Marketing Journal, on Medium
3 months
The problem