Author Archives: Christine

A new interesting Beta of WhatsApp for Window Phone has just been released. This latest 2.16.24 version, along with bug fixes and performance improvements, brings some useful new features. So, let’s see what changes if you use WhatsApp through a Windows Phone device.Version 2.16.24 adds:

• 18 new wallpapers;
• the ability to silence some conversations selectively (now you just have to hold the conversation you want to silence and click on the mute button);
• preview of links (like YouTube thumbnail);
• the ability to send and receive Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

These new features were much awaited, so they will surely be appreciated by Windows Phone users. Unfortunately it is not possible to download this latest 2.16.24 Beta as it is restricted, but it is possible to download the public version from the Windows Store.

Are you an avid WhatsApp user? Do you use the app also while working (but not only for work reasons)? Well, remember to be careful, because your employer could be reading your messages. Last January we talked about a decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that allowed employers to read employees’ private messages sent via chats and webmail accounts during their working hours.

Well, this decision hasn’t discouraged WhatsApp and Facebook users at all, and they keep on using these instant messaging apps even at work. In fact it seems that they don’t know, or forget, the fact that their employers might be reading their messages. Recent statistics report that only in the UK employees send about 100 private messages a day while working. That’s quite a huge number, isn’t it?

On the matter David Evans, director of policy at BCS, said: “It’s really important for individuals to understand how their use of email and social media fits with their employer’s policies,” adding that “It is also important for managers to treat employees with respect, and not monitoring their employees more than is needed to manage the business risks.”

Obviously, it’s especially young employees who send most of the messages, and about 90 per cent of people aged 16 to 24 year old send private messages during the day. But what is the content of these messages? A survey on 1000 people showed that: 40 per cent has sent messages about new job opportunities, 9 per cent has sent messages to flirt with a colleague and 31 per cent has done online shopping.

Jamie Bowler, marketing director at Dice, said that clearly many people aren’t aware of their workplace policies, and has also given a suggestion: “We’d always advise people to be careful about their communication in the workplace. Let’s face it, we’ve all had that feeling of dread when we’ve sent the wrong person the wrong email.” So, once again, before you send private messages while working, check your company’s policy.

We know that’s incredible, but here we are, talking about the new Beta version of WhatsApp for Android that has just been released. This new 2.16.33 Beta version of WhatsApp for Android weighs 27.64 MB and runs on all Android 2.1 or later devices. As we said, since this latest APK is a Beta, so you won’t find it on the Google Play Store.

So, what changes with this latest 2.16.33 Beta version? Honestly we couldn’t find anything new, but developers, as usual, have worked hard to further improve the app stability and performance and also fixed some bugs. How can you install this latest APK on your Android device? Don’t worry, it’s extremely simple. In order to download successfully this latest APK file, the first thing you need to do is to enable the Unknown Sources option. You’ll find this option on your device by going to Settings > Security > Unknown Sources.

Once you’ve enabled this option, you just need to download the WhatsApp Messenger 2.16.33 APK from here. Now, to install this latest version of WhatsApp for Android, you need to open the file manager in your Android device and follow thoroughly the instructions. And that’s it, as simple as that. Now you have updated your Android device with the latest 2.16.33 version of WhatsApp.

Lately we talked a lot about the decision of WhatsApp to roll out end-to-end encryption for all its users. This action of the Facebook-owned app obviously created a large debate, where some companies strongly agree with this action and some others (especially some governments) don’t.

Today, last news report that Viber, another successfull instant messaging app as well as one of the major competitor of WhatsApp, has decided to add end-to-end encryption as well. With this option the company won’t be allowed to access any of its users messages, and, obviously, neither will be government agencies. A spokesperson of the company stated that this new update will be available to users worldwide in “several weeks“.

A new Beta version of WhatsApp for Android has just been released.This latest update, now we are at Beta 2.16.32, doesn’t bring any substantial changes to the app, but just some improvements (which are equally important) and some bug fixes. This latest Beta release weighs about 27MB and runs on any Android device. The build number of this update’s download file is 451098.

Since it’s a Beta, you won’t find it on the Google Play Store, unless you are already a member of the Official Beta Channel. So, how can you install this latest 2.16.32 Beta version of WhatsApp on your Android device? Through the APK Mirror. Remember that in order to download the APK of this latest update of WhatsApp on your Android device you have to enable first the Unknown Sources option, so follow this simple procedure. First of all grab your device and go to Settings > Security > Unknown Sources and enable this option.Now you can go to WhatsApp web site and download the APK File. Easy, isn’t it? And its simplicity is probably one of the reasons of the success of WhatsApp.

The app is totally suitable for all and now the Facebook-owned app is not only used all over the world to communicate with family and friends, but also for work reasons, and has gained its own special place among media. In our blog we mentioned several times that WhatsApp, with its 1 billion monthly active users, is particularly used in some countries more than in others, and Brazil is one of the countries where WhatsApp is loved the most. According to recent statistics it seems that 96% of Brazilians use WhatsApp as their first choice of communication.

A country where this popular instant messaging app is so widespread, is certainly perfect to start analyzing more in deep its use and its applicability. Fernanda Saboia, a senior strategist at digital agency Huge which is based in Rio, talking about WhatsApp in the Harvard Business Review said: “has become something much bigger than a chat app” and that the app is now a “one-stop solution for everyone“.

Saboia has analyzed what users expect from WhatsApp, and stated that  “It has changed how users expect to interact with companies and brands online, and it is forcing firms to use messaging to fulfil customer expectations,” adding that consumers now expect immediate answers to their queries (the average reply time for email is about 90 minutes while the one for instant messaging is 90 seconds).

Nowadays WhatsApp is already used by many companies to alert customers about their new products, and Fernanda Saboia thinks that brands should pay special attention not to send unsolicited promotional material. Saboia believes that “The key is to focus on creating quality content where your brand is trying to be not the centre of the discussion but rather a memorable element in the background“

A new Beta version of WhatsApp for Android users is available on the Google Play Store. Even if there is no change log for this latest 2.16.26 Beta version, we can tell you that the weight of this update is 29.16 MB (just 1.5MB more than the previous 2.16.25 version) and that, as usual, it comes with some bug fixes and performance improvements.

Certainly now everybody knows that recently WhatsApp has introduced end-to-end encryption for all messages and voice calls, a feature that seems to be really appreciated by WhatsApp users. But not all governments seem to agree with the users of this popular instant messaging app. For example India’s government, since it allows online services to use just up to 40-bit encryption, while WhatsApp uses 256.

That said, obviously the job of WhatsApp developers hasn’t come to an end, on the contrary, and the future of the app is full of new features. So, how can you install this latest 2.1.26 Beta version of WhatsApp for Android? If you are already a member of the Official Beta Channel, you can download it from the Google Play Store. If not, you can always download if from the APK Mirror.

Considering the incredible amount of messages sent through WhatsApp (about a million messages every two seconds), you might think that the Facebook-owned company employs hundreds of engineers. Well, you’re wrong. WhatsApp has a total of 57 engineers. At the last F8 Conference Rick Reed, WhatsApp software engineer, said that such a small size allows the company to stay nimble and explained that “The culture really has everything to do with our ability to scale” adding that “Our mission is to provide a simple, fast, reliable communications tool without a lot of extra bells and whistles“.

At the Conference Reed has also explained the company’s philosophy, which is, to use his own words, “no-meeting culture“. Instead of meetings it seems that WhatsApp staffers use “various chat programs to talk to each other constantly, within small project groups. It really allows us to stay focused on what we’re doing and it really contributes to a very quiet office“. Is it the secret of the success of WhatsApp? Certainly not the only one. Furthermore, Reed said that  “We work really hard to get the right people into the right positions“. And the results show that he’s right.

60 billion messages a day: that’s the really impressive number of messages sent through WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Exactly three times the global volume of SMS messages, which is 20 billion (which, to be honest, are not a few). Actually these figures aren’t completely unexpected, but they are remarkable indeed.

The popularity of instant messaging apps around the world is increasing every day for several reasons. First of all they are cheaper and faster (you simply need an internet connection) than SMS, and especially much cheaper than phone calls, and, what’s more important, instant messaging apps allow users not only to send messages or to use voice call options, but they also allow users to share pictures, videos and now also documents.

One more time, we must admire the foresight of Mark Zuckerberg, chairman, chief executive, and co-founder of Facebook, who has understood well in advance the importance of these kind of services and consequently decided to buy Instagram and WhatsApp. Now WhatsApp has reached the incredible number of 1 billion monthly active users, followed immediately by Facebook with 900 million monthly users. And with all the improvements and new functions that are regularly added to these messaging  apps, we can safely imagine that the number of users will certainly grow in the near future.

Despite all the debates around the end-to-end encryption feature, or the competition with other instant messaging apps such as Viber or Telegram, WhatsApp is daily used by millions of people around the world not only for personal reasons. In fact, something like 330 million people use WhatsApp on a daily basis for business purposes.

Is it definitively the end of an era and the beginning of a new one? Many people think so. Telephone companies are not giving up but certainly they are struggling to survive to this fierce competition. So, what’s your favourite way to communicate: WhatsApp or SMS?

The importance of WhatsApp in our everyday life is undeniable, and every day there is a reason to talk about the Facebook-owned instant messaging application. After the clamour caused by the decision to add end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp developers have never stopped updating the app, and almost every day there is the release of an updated version of the app.Sometimes the update is for the Android platform, some other times for Windows Phone or iPhone platforms, but fact is that the app keeps getting better and better.

Today let’s see what changes for Android users with this latest 2.16.13 stable version of WhatsApp. Probably the most noticeable improvement that has been brought is the optimization of the end-to-end encryption feature, since some features that were added with the latest Beta are not included in this 2.16.13 stable version. We are talking about the ability to use different fonts in our messages such bold, italic and strikeout, or the new wallpapers and the new interface for capturing photos and videos.

But of course this new stable version fixes some issues and brings stability improvements. As we said above, this latest version of WhatsApp for Android devices already benefit of the end-to-end encryption, which guarantees users that messages can be read only by sender and receiver. How can you install this latest stable version of WhatsApp for Android on your device?

Couldn’t be more easy. You can already find it on the Google Play Store, so you simply need to open the official Android Store and search for WhatsApp. Once you’ve found it you can install it on your Android device. We talked above about the importance of WhatsApp in our everyday life, and we can safely state that internet messaging applications have now a relevant part in communication all over the world.

For this reason some governments try to banish these apps or to control their use. Some recent news report that in some regions of Ethiopia, including Oromia, it was not possible to use WhatsApp or other messaging services such as Facebook or Twitter for more than a month due to fatal protests.

These protests began in November in Oromia, where people demonstrated because of economic and political marginalization of Ethiopia’s most populous ethnic group. The protest has been harshly repressed and since then the government is trying to restrict access to social media. Leslie Lefkow, deputy director for Africa at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: “Pulling the plug on social media is a predictable attempt to cut the flow of news and information about the Oromo protests,”

After just a few days from the previous one, a new, updated, Whatsapp version for Windows Phone devices has already been released. At a glance, this latest 2.16.14.0 version of WhatsApp for Windows Phone devices doesn’t bring any new features, but instead it further improves what was recently added.

So, what changes for Windows Phone users? Let’s see it together. Now, when you use WhatsApp through Windows Phone devices, these are the additional options that you have:

• you’ll be able to send and receive PDFs;
• you can now trim videos before you send them;
• you’ll be able to send larger videos: in fact, thanks to the latest updates, the videos will be automatically resized;
• for specific chats, you are allowed to use sharing as well as forwarding option;
• last but not least: the ability, for specific chats, to choose to save media to your phone’s photo app.

And let’s not forget that, according to some rumours, the Video Calling feature will soon be available (it seems in a couple of months), even if, it goes without saying, most likely the Android platform will be the first to receive it. That said, let’s see how to download this latest 2.16.14.0 version of WhatsApp for Windows Phone.

The good news is that you can install this latest WhatsApp version straight from the official Store. You simply have to open the store and, once it’s opened, you just need to search for WhatsApp. At this point, you will be able to install this popular instant messaging app on you Windows Phone device. When the installation is ended, remember to use your mobile phone number to log again into your WhatsApp account.

These latest updates of the Facebook-owned app follow the decision of WhatsApp founders (Jan Koum and Brian Acton) to add the now famous (and debated) end-to-end encryption, which should make users’ messages secure and safe from hackers.