Category Archives: FACTS

WhatsApp seems to be almost as popular as soccer in Spain; the use of the application in the nation has risen to incredible levels. More interestingly, Spaniards appear to be among the world’s biggest consumers of messenger solutions of all kinds.

The leading solution is WhatsApp, which is now present on 98% of the smartphones sold in the kingdom, El Pais reported . Around 51.5% of Spanish smartphone users send messages via WhatsApp each day.

Statista found that around 70% of the Internet users in Spain also utilize WhatsApp. Interestingly enough, Spaniards are Europe’s largest users of WhatsApp, and their use of the app exceeds that of many developing countries.

The rate of WhatsApp usage in Spain is actually higher than in India, Brazil, and Mexico. The success of WhatsApp in Spain seems to contradict the argument that the application is primarily a solution for developing nations because Spain is a highly advanced country and a member of the European Union. Therefore it would be a good idea to ask why WhatsApp is so popular in Spain and if those conditions exist in other countries.

Why Is WhatsApp So Successful in Spain?

A good way to begin would be to identify those factors that make WhatsApp so popular in Spain. This could help marketers and entrepreneurs trying to utilize the application market to Spaniards and people in other countries. It could also help ecommerce professionals identify other nations that have similar characteristics to Spain.

One reason why WhatsApp is so successful in Spain is that it is a very advanced country with extensive wireless coverage and many Wi-Fi hotspots. That makes it very easy to stay in touch using messaging solutions.

Phones also seem to lend themselves to Spanish culture because the Spaniards are a highly talkative people. They like to communicate verbally, unlike some of the Northern Europeans, who prefer written or verbal communications.

Economics also plays a role. Spain’s lousy economy and the high cost of cell phone service make WhatsApp, which can be used for free by utilizing Wi-Fi, very attractive. A person that takes it to a Wi-Fi hotspot can send unlimited amounts of data.

WhatsApp is also designed to facilitate communication among groups such as coworkers and families. That is very appealing in a country with strong family ties.

People in Latin cultures such as Spain prefer direct communication without commercial interference, Lisbon University sociologist Gustavo Leitao Cardaso told El Pais. Latins seem to prefer written communication that is more like a face-to-face conversation than the quick messaging on sites like Twitter and Facebook, which is more of a bulletin board.

Part of the reason for this is that Facebook and Twitter seem to be designed for North Americans, who prefer some degree of anonymity and speed in conversation. English-speaking people are also more tolerant of advertising than people in Spain seem to be.

Advertising and other features that Americans or Englishmen might ignore are very offensive to Spaniards. The Spanish seem to look to the Internet as an intimate means of communication.

How to Use WhatsApp to Reach People in Spain

Marketers need to keep this in mind when they are trying to use WhatsApp to reach people in Spain. Spanish people are interested in conversation, not advertising. They want to hear real people speaking about a product or service, not a pitch from a salesperson.

This means the best way to market on WhatsApp in Spain would be to create content that will spread virally. Spaniards will ignore advertising, but they will pay attention to messages from friends and family. Pictures of products or descriptions of low prices might spread quickly in that fashion, particularly if they can reach members of WhatsApp groups.

People that want to reach Spanish customers where they live will need to utilize social media, and WhatsApp appears to be the most popular social media there. More importantly, it offers a tool for reaching consumers in the form of WhatsApp Broadcast Lists.

How WhatsApp in Spain Could Help You Reach People in Other Nations

Spain could also serve as a testing ground for WhatsApp marketing designed to reach people in other Spanish-speaking countries. WhatsApp is very popular in some other nations that use the Spanish language, including Mexico and Argentina. Around 75% of Argentine Internet users and 67% of Mexicans take advantage of WhatsApp.

This indicates that some of the same cultural factors that drive WhatsApp usage in Spain could be present in those nations. WhatsApp is also very successful in at least two other nations with Latin cultures; around 62% of Internet users in Italy and 57% in Brazil also use WhatsApp for messaging.

High usage of WhatsApp is also becoming a problem in Spain. Psychologist Jose Antonio Molina told El Pais that social media addiction is a growing problem in Spain, particularly among young people.

Poor social skills, delusions and compulsive behavior, and sleeping problems are among the symptoms associated with such addictions, according to Molina. If such addictions become widespread, it could create a backlash against WhatsApp and inspire efforts to curtail social media usage.

Another insight that Molina offered is that WhatsApp is very popular with young people in Spain. Data uncovered by El Pais indicates that seven out of 10 people between the ages of 16 and 34 in Spain have Internet connections on their phones. That number is higher than the average in the European Union, which indicates some differences in Spanish culture.

A major difference could be that traditional computers are less pervasive in Spain. That makes phones the more popular means of accessing the Internet in the nation. Another is that younger Spaniards, who have one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, around 49.2% according to Statista, simply cannot afford computers. Phones are the only means that they have of accessing the Internet and popular entertainment.

That means social media like WhatsApp could now be a primary means of entertainment for many in Spain. Therefore persons that want to expand entertainment enterprises to Spain might want to take advantage of solutions like WhatsApp.

The high levels of WhatsApp usage in Spain should serve as a reminder of this application’s potential. Those that can understand it might be able to leverage its power for other purposes.

One of the most fascinating things about WhatsApp is its popularity in Europe. Even though the solution is often hailed as a cutting-edge messaging app for developing nations, it is almost as popular in some European countries.

The statistics prove that Europeans love WhatsApp and cannot get enough of it. Data provided by
Statista
proves that WhatsApp use is as widespread in some European countries as it is in the developing world. These numbers show just how popular WhatsApp is in the European Union:

• 70% of Spain’s Internet users also chatted on WhatsApp.

• 62% of Italians were WhatsApp users.

• 61% of the Internet users in the Netherlands were also utilizing WhatsApp.

• 57% of Germany’s Internet users were sending messages through WhatsApp.

• Around 34% of people in the United Kingdom and Ireland were WhatsApp users.

How Divorce Can Teach Us about WhatsApp Marketing in Italy

These numbers show us that ecommerce entrepreneurs looking for a communications solution that can reach Europeans, including some of the world’s most affluent people, should definitely take a look at WhatsApp. The humble messaging app seems to be as popular in the land of high-speed trains and fine wine as it is in developing nations filled with oxcarts and muddy water.

WhatsApp also seems to be very well suited for some European cultures, including those of Spain and Italy. The Italian Association of Matrimonial Lawyers reported that WhatsApp evidence is now being used in 40% of the divorce cases in Italy, an article in Britain’s Independent indicates.

WhatsApp has actually encouraged the return of the Latin Lover, the Association’s President Gian Ettore Gassani told The Times of London. This would seem to indicate that WhatsApp is both a part of people’s lives and a behavior-changing solution. That obviously means its potential for marketing and other ecommerce applications is vast as people are willing to adopt it quickly.

Social Media Marketing in Europe

Persons that want to reach Italians where they live should definitely consider taking advantage of WhatsApp. One excellent means of using WhatsApp to market to Italians is to send pictures on it.

Risqué pictures of lovers sent through WhatsApp is one of the main uses of WhatsApp in Italian divorces, Gassani noted. Obviously, people willing to send out pictures of lovers would be willing to send out pictures of other items they like, such as cars, clothing, or shoes.

One way a fashion designer could get the word out about her creations in Italy would be to use a WhatsApp Broadcast List to send picture of them to Italian contacts. The idea would be to try to get the pictures to go viral. A fashion designer would want to reach Italians because that country still plays a disproportionate role in the world’s fashion business. Designs and products from Milan are still sold around the world.

Another would be to place pictures of them on Pinterest , which is a social media solution for pictures. People can post images to Pinterest, which are then shared with others.

Others that could take advantage of this kind of marketing would be artists, persons selling items such as antiques or cars, and professionals such as models. Anybody in an image-conscious business could use WhatsApp to reach people in Italy.

An Ideal Marketing Solution for Europe and the World

The popularity of WhatsApp in Europe could help ecommerce entrepreneurs with one of their biggest challenges: marketing to people in different countries with very different cultures.

Social media marketing efforts designed to reach Americans and Canadians often fall in flat for a variety of reasons. Europeans use different media socials; for example, Americans and Canadians seem to prefer Twitter and Facebook. North Americans are also more likely to connect to the Internet with a traditional desktop or laptop computer, while Southern Europeans are more likely to use a phone.

The way people view the Internet is often different as well. North Americans and Northern Europeans seem to view the Internet as primarily a source of information. Southern Europeans and people in some regions such as South America seem to see it as more of a communications channel.

One reason for this is how people connect to the net. Italians and Spaniards are more likely to connect through a smartphone. Swedes, Englishmen, and Americans are more likely to use a tablet.

A critical difference here is that Americans and Brits are more likely to get their information from a website, while Italians or Spaniards are more likely to get it from a phone. WhatsApp is also more effective in cultures that place a higher value on word of mouth and face-to-face contact, such as that in Italy.

Some people seem to prefer getting their information directly from an individual. Others seem to trust institutions or organizations more. This has to do with history and culture. Many Latins view most institutions as corrupt, so they place a greater store on individuals. People from English-speaking countries think in the reverse; they often view institutions as trustworthy and distrust individuals.

Tailor Marketing for Different Countries

What this means is that marketing and promotion efforts have to be tailored for different countries and different cultures. Formerly, only very large and rich companies like Coca-Cola and Volkswagen were able to do that.

Now individuals and small businesses can do the same thing by taking advantage of applications such as WhatsApp. WhatsApp Broadcast Lists in particular can now enable a person to create small-scale marketing efforts aimed at specific countries or groups. A marketer could create one list for Germany, one for the Netherlands, and one for Italy.

The material sent through these lists would be very different. It would be in different languages and emphasize different aspects of the product. Material sent to England might contain more written messages, and that sent to Italy would contain more pictures.

The popularity of WhatsApp in Europe could be a tremendous opportunity for marketers and ecommerce entrepreneurs. Those that learn how to market through WhatsApp in Europe should be able to leverage its power to market all over the world.

It is not hard to see why large numbers of entrepreneurs would be skeptical of the idea of using WhatsApp for ecommerce . Many earlier social media solutions, including Twitter, have proven themselves to be of little use for commerce.

To make matters worse, some of these social media solutions have turned into black holes that suck in advertising money but deliver no results. WhatsApp, to its credit, is advertisement free and will probably remain that way. Yet many skeptics will point out that the solution appears to be designed for individual communication, not for business.

Despite the well-founded skepticism, it is possible to use WhatsApp for ecommerce purposes. Some businesses, particularly in India, are using WhatsApp for ecommerce. Their experience indicates that WhatsApp can be a powerful ecommerce tool if it is used creatively.

Use WhatsApp to Improve Customer Communication and Customer Service

The most obvious and potent use of WhatsApp is to improve customer service. Since it is a cross platform messaging solution , WhatsApp can facilitate instant communication between a business and a customer.

This can greatly improve customer service in fields like delivery because it can make managers instantly aware of a problem such as a missed delivery. That can enable a business to quickly and sometimes instantly address a problem.

For example, a taxi service could instantly send out another cab if a customer reported that his ride did not arrive. A retailer could quickly learn of a delayed shipment or an order that was wrong.

A business could also use WhatsApp to instantly notify its customers of changes or problems. Customers could be made immediately aware of potential troubles, such as delayed shipments.

Improved Delivery

Many Indian companies are trying to use WhatsApp to improve delivery, which is often the weak link of ecommerce, Digital Marketing Magazine reported. The uses of WhatsApp for delivery are obviously limited to companies that provide their own delivery service.

WhatsApp could eliminate some of the security and other concerns some delivery services face. A delivery person could use it to tell a customer that he or she is about to drop off a package or to ask a customer when something could be dropped. If the delivery person took the package to another location, such as a local business, he or she could simply send out a message telling the customer where to pick it up.

Another use would be for a delivery person that needs to collect payment to tell a customer when he or she is coming. That way a person that ordered a pizza could be at the door with the cash to pay for it as the deliverer drove up to the house.

Couriers in particular could make their runs more efficient with WhatsApp. They could tell customers when to open the door and when they were about to arrive.

Integrating Ecommerce and Service with WhatsApp

WhatsApp could also enable service businesses to take advantage of ecommerce. Many service businesses and professionals have had a hard time taking advantage of ecommerce because they have no way to contact customers directly.

WhatsApp could provide a very cheap means for a service professional such as a plumber or a cleaning lady to contact his or her customers directly. A plumber that could miss an appointment because of a delay on another job could use WhatsApp to tell his next customer he will be late. The same plumber could also use WhatsApp to dispatch somebody else from his company to cover his next service call.

One potential use of WhatsApp would be for dispatching professionals to calls. Another would be to keep service or even sales professionals in the field updated with the latest information. Service people could know where their colleagues were and who was available.

A serviceperson in the field could use WhatsApp to keep the office or the dispatch informed of his activities. A repairman could send out a message when he was on lunch or when he was going off duty and not available to cover a call. A manager or dispatcher could know which of her repairmen were available to cover a call.

WhatsApp Groups for Ecommerce

One of the most powerful WhatsApp features for business is the ability to create groups of people that are in constant contact with each other. Naturally, this could be of tremendous advantage to business.

It would be most useful in businesses where managers or others need to maintain regular contact with team members, particularly team members that are out in the field. A WhatsApp Group and smartphones, which most of the employees will presumably own, could replace expensive radios or pagers for team communications.

WhatsApp Groups are very useful for business because it is possible to chat with up to 100 people at once using WhatsApp. More importantly, you can now add unlimited numbers of such groups. That means a CEO could conceivably chat with everybody in her company using WhatsApp.

A WhatsApp Broadcast List could be used to send out regular updates to the team members. WhatsApp could also be used to send out information, including documents and pictures, to members of the team.

The manager could send a person making a delivery a picture of the address he is going to in order to make it easier to find that location for example. He could also use WhatsApp to contact the person at the address and tell him or her when the delivery is about to arrive.

Immediate Follow Up

Another use would be to do immediate follow up with the customer to see if he or she was satisfied with the delivery. That way any problems could be addressed as quickly as possible. For example, if the order was wrong, the manager could immediately dispatch a second delivery person with the right order.

Such immediate follow up allows instant improvements in customer service. It is also the next frontier for both service businesses and ecommerce.

A long-term development will allow for fast or instant service in which a customer uses WhatsApp to contact the company. A customer could use WhatsApp to call a plumber and make the plumber’s job easier by taking a picture of a broken pipe or fixture that needs service. That way the plumber might know what is wrong and which tools or parts to take along.

The ultimate benefit of WhatsApp will be to transform many service businesses into ecommerce operations and bring a higher level of service to ecommerce. Those companies that adapt to it could be able to greatly increase their customer service and their profits.

Even though Broadcast Lists could be one of WhatsApp’s most powerful tools, many people are unfamiliar with them. Others are confused by this tool and how it works.

Basically, a Broadcast List is a feature that allows a WhatsApp user to create a list of contacts and send messages to them. The messages look like a regular chat, but there are some key differences. These differences make Broadcast Lists ideal for marketing, merchandising, and other business functions.

The best way to understand what a WhatsApp Broadcast List is and how it works is to learn the differences between such a list and a regular WhatsApp Group. Once you understand these differences, you will see why Broadcast Lists could be the key to WhatsApp’s future.

Broadcast Lists vs. WhatsApp Groups

Here are the major differences between Broadcast Lists and groups in WhatsApp:

• A Broadcast List is a one-way communication. The recipients of the list cannot respond to it like chat recipients can. This enables a person to send a message to large numbers of people without having his or her account flooded with responses.

• Broadcast Lists were designed for business communications—to enable a retailer to send a coupon or a notification about a sale to all of her customers for example.

• Broadcast Lists and group chat cannot be done at the same time.

• Group chat is designed to facilitate communication between a group of people. Broadcast Lists are designed to facilitate communication between one person and the group.

• Contact information is not shared through Broadcast Lists.

• A person on a Broadcast List is not notified if anybody else is receiving a message. In a group chat, everybody is notified about everybody else’s communications.

• Only one person, the administrator or creator of the list, can send messages or add people to the broadcast. The administrator also has the ability to remove recipients from the list.

As you can see, Broadcast Lists were created as a means of facilitating mass communications through WhatsApp. The idea was to open up WhatsApp for use by journalists, marketers, and others that want to reach large numbers of people at once.

How to Create WhatsApp Broadcast Lists

Creating and sending out a Broadcast List is actually easier than a lot of people think. Here are the basic steps needed to create and send out such a list:

• Open WhatsApp.

• Click on the options button in the top right-hand corner of WhatsApp.

• Select New Broadcast.

• Add the names of contacts from your address book. You can only add contacts from your own address book. That means you will have to add contacts to your address book before creating a list.

• Click on the Create button.

• You will be able to send text messages to every member of the group and send out any sort of media allowed on WhatsApp, including video and photos.

Currently, there is a limit to the number of people you can add to a Broadcast List. The current limit is around 256 recipients unless WhatsApp expands it.

How to Take Advantage of WhatsApp Broadcast Lists

WhatsApp Broadcast Lists have the potential to become a powerful marketing and communication tool. That tool could be utilized by a wide variety of people and institutions.

Some of those who could take advantage of WhatsApp Broadcast Lists include the following:

• Small businesspeople
• Politicians
• Clergy
• Teachers
• College professors
• Government officials
• Marketers
• Salespeople
• Entertainers
• Service professionals
• Leaders of community organizations, such as Parent Teacher Associations (the PTA)
• Community activists

• Police officers
• Agents
• Executives
• Military officers
• Business owners
• Managers
• School administrators
• Administrators
• Government administrators
• Coaches
• Mothers
• Fathers
• Grandparents
• Parents
• Journalists
• Writers

Basically, anybody that needs to reach a group of people with communications can take advantage of Broadcast Lists through WhatsApp. Since most people carry and use smartphones these days, such a list could be a cheap and convenient means of reaching members of the group.

A teacher could use a list to send lessons to the members of her class. A coach could use a Broadcast List to reach members of his team. A manager could use a list to contact employees and notify them of changes. A business owner could use a list to send updates to customers.

For example, the coach could notify team members if practice has been cancelled. A delivery person could use a broadcast list to notify customers when their package will arrive. The driver of a carpool could use WhatsApp to let riders know what time he will reach them.

Are Broadcast Lists the Future of WhatsApp?

Not surprisingly, many people will be wondering if Broadcast Lists are the future of WhatsApp. After all such lists could be the catalyst that transforms WhatsApp from a simple messaging solution.

Since WhatsApp has around 900 million users around the world, the audience that Broadcast Lists could one day reach could be vast. A logical extension of this application would be to create Broadcast Lists capable of reaching thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people at once.

Naturally, advertisers and media creators such as newspapers or musicians would want to utilize such a solution, although it would also conflict with the legendary aversion to advertising shown by WhatsApp creator Jan Koum, who currently serves as the company’s CEO.

Broadcast Lists Could Be the Future of Marketing

One strong possibility is that Facebook, which now owns WhatsApp, will enable some sort of widespread Broadcast List solution after the solution reaches a wide audience. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken about concentrating on WhatsApp’s growth now and monetizing it later. One has to imagine that WhatsApp Broadcast Lists will be part of that plan.

That might mean he already has a large-scale WhatsApp Broadcast List feature in the works. The smaller lists currently available could be a beta test for a larger application.

This means that those that want to get in on the future of marketing and potentially utilize a media that could reach hundreds of millions of people around the globe should start experimenting with WhatsApp Broadcast Lists now. WhatsApp Broadcast Lists could be the future of marketing.

Is it cheaper to use WhatsApp for phone calls or to make your calls the old fashioned way? The best answer to this question is it depends upon how you use WhatsApp.

Yes, WhatsApp voice calls are theoretically free, but there is a catch that some people forget about. WhatsApp can use up a lot of data, which you have to pay for unless you connect directly to the web. If you have to use your data plan to access the web, you will pay for it.

When AndroidPit put WhatsApp Calling to the test, its editors discovered that the average WhatsApp call uses around 800 kilobytes (KB) of data a minute. That means you can burn through your data plan pretty fast. To make matters worse, it can get very expensive rather quickly, especially in the United States, which has the most expensive data plans in the world.

This applies to both calls you make and people who call you. Incoming and outgoing calls take up the same amount of data, so the cost is roughly the same.

Data Plan Cost vs. Phone Call Cost

The average U.S. data plan costs around $85 and gives a user 500 megabytes (MB) of data, according to Android Central. Since a megabyte contains 1,000 kilobytes of data, such a plan would give you 625 minutes of data time.

At that rate, you could use all up all of your data in about six ten-minute phone calls. Judging by the amount of time a lot of people, particularly teenagers and some women, spend on the phone, quite a few people would use up $85 worth of data in just one day.

That, of course, is a very bad deal considering the fact that you can get a plan with unlimited talk from U.S. carriers such as Republic Wireless for as low as $40 a month, according to U.S. News & World Report. This also means that WhatsApp is a very bad deal for domestic calling in the United States unless you can connect directly to the Internet.

Outside the U.S., WhatsApp might save you money because there are data plans that cost as low as $10 a month in countries such as India, Indonesia, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, according to Android Central. It should be noted that there are some other nations, including Angola and Morocco, where data costs much the same as in the United States.

Therefore it might be a good idea for Americans that travel overseas to buy data or even a phone at their final destination. It can be a lot cheaper in some countries; 500 MG of data costs as little as $4.70 in Austria and $8.80 in the UK.

Since most cell phone plans now provide large amounts of free or fairly cheap calling, WhatsApp is not necessarily that great of a deal for regular calls. There are, however, a couple of ways that you can call for free on WhatsApp.

How to Get Free WhatsApp Calls

There are two hacks that can enable you to call for free on WhatsApp. Unfortunately, not everybody thinks of these tricks until they get a big data bill.

The first and most popular means of calling free on WhatsApp is to find a free Wi-Fi hotspot. This trick works because WhatsApp itself is free or very cheap; normally all you need to pay is 99¢ for the app itself. It is the data that costs the money; if you use somebody else’s data, you do not pay.

That is why many people go out looking for hotspots to make WhatsApp calls. Places where you can find hotspots include many coffee shops, including Starbucks locations in the United States, some fast restaurants, including the ever popular McDonalds, and in parts of the United States, public libraries.

A great many franchised restaurants now offer free Wi-Fi to lure in customers, although you might be expected to buy a drink or a snack to use the Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi might also be available at your workplace, although you should probably ask permission to use it there.

Beyond Wi-Fi, you can also make WhatsApp voice message calls on your computer using WhatsApp Web. WhatsApp Web is simply a modified version of the application designed to be used on computers. The Telegraph reported that it is possible to make voice calls directly over WhatsApp Web. Calls on it are free because they are made directly over the Internet rather than through a data plan.

To use WhatsApp Web, all you need to do is install WhatsApp Web on a computer and hook up a headset. You should be able to make calls to most WhatsApp users over WhatsApp Web.

How to Use WhatsApp Calling

It is possible to save money through WhatsApp Calling on your data plan if you use it carefully and sparingly. If you just make the occasional call, it probably will not cost that much, but if you make a lot of calls, it can quickly add up.

A good way to see if you can afford to make WhatsApp calls is to count the number of calls you make a day and calculate how long they last. If you make several long calls a day, WhatsApp Calling will not help you. If you make just one or two short calls a day, you might be able to afford WhatsApp.

If you want to use WhatsApp Calling, you can save money if you exercise a little self-discipline. For example, limit calls, and if possible, try to get people you might have long conversations with to call you using your regular cell phone service or to call back when Wi-Fi or WhatsApp Web is available.

Simply explain the cost of data time to those people. Most people will want to try to help you save money by changing their calling habits. For those that do not want to, you can always refuse phone calls by touching the red phone icon.

Another cheaper alternative to WhatsApp voice is simply to send people text messages. Obviously, not everybody wants to text, but it can be a cheaper solution.

The secret to saving money with WhatsApp is to remember that data time is not free even if WhatsApp itself is. If you can keep that in mind, you should be able to use WhatsApp calling to stay in contact with friends and family and to save money.

The most intriguing thing about WhatsApp could be the way in which it is creating billionaires. The humble messaging app has already turned two obscure engineers from Silicon Valley into billionaires, and it is greatly bolstering the fortune of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The ability of Facebook and WhatsApp to make people rich is now so pronounced that a number of financial journalists are writing about what Forbes writer Jennifer Wang has labeled “The Facebook Effect.” In a recent article, Wang noted that eight of the richest American entrepreneurs under the age of 40 have close connections to Facebook.

Meet the WhatsApp Billionaires

At least two of them, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, made their money directly from WhatsApp. The two are the engineers who created the app in 2009, built it into a global communications platform, and sold it to Facebook for $22 billion in stock and cash in February 2014.

Jan Koum, who is now worth $8.7 billion, is definitely living the American dream. He grew up in the Ukraine in a home with no electricity or running water and suffered persecution under the Soviet Union. After coming to the U.S. at age 16, Koum swept floors at a grocery store, and his family went on food stamps in order to eat. Koum is a college dropout who worked at Yahoo for nine years.

The man who once swept floors now serves on Facebook’s board of directors. He is also a philanthropist who donated $555 million in Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Foundation in October 2014. Koum is also one of America’s most eligible bachelors, according to Forbes.

Koum, who is of Jewish heritage, is an outspoken supporter of Israel and a critic of antisemitism. He made a social media stir in November 2015 when he sent this message to the owner of an Apple laptop covered with “Boycott Israeli Goods Stickers” and a note attacking Apple for using Israeli technology.

“Hi there! Just thought you should know the flash-storage inside this computer was designed and built by Anobit, an Israeli technology company! If you don’t want it any more, please pass it to the desk behind you,” Koum wrote.

Facebook Paid $3.3 Billion to the Man It Would Not Hire

Koum’s partner in establishing WhatsApp was Brian Acton, a computer engineer who, ironically enough, was turned down when he applied for a job at Facebook in 2009. Just five years later, the same company paid Acton $3 billion in stock and cash for his share of WhatsApp.

Brian Acton was the first investor and cofounder of WhatsApp. He also tapped a surprising source of business expertise when they set up the company. Acton’s mother, who also ran a freight-shipping company, reportedly did the payroll and helped set up the company. Like Koum, Acton is now part of the legendary Forbes 400—the 400 richest people in the United States; he’s worth $4.4 billion.

Unlike Koum, Acton, who lives in Palo Alto, California, is married and has one child. He is also well known for his hatred of advertising and commercialism.

A Few More Social Media Billionaires

Like railroads in the 19^th century, computers in the 1980s, and the Internet in the 1990s, social media is making billionaires. The epicenter of the gold rush is Facebook, which has been among the most successful companies in history.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg is now worth around $47.1 billion. Most of that money comes from Facebook’s stock, which increased in value by 40% over the past year. Interestingly enough, Forbes attributed that increase to WhatsApp and Jan Koum, noting that it occurred after Facebook took a gamble and bought WhatsApp.

Two other beneficiaries of WhatsApp are Facebook cofounders David Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The two are former Harvard College classmates of Zuckerberg who helped him form a website called the Facebook. The site was originally based in Moskovitz and Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard.

Moskovitz is now worth $9.7 billion because of Facebook, and Chris Hughes netted $400 million. Since leaving Facebook, Hughes worked on President Obama’s successful election campaign in 2008 and bought the magazine The New Republic.

Also raking in some cash is Napster creator Sean Parker, who served as Facebook’s first president. Even though Parker has not worked at the social network for 10 years, he still raked in $2.5 billion in stock profits.

Two other billionaires that Zuckerberg helped make were Evan Spiegel and Brian Murphy, the founders of Snapchat. Zuckerberg offered them $3 billion for their app in 2013. The former fraternity brothers from Stanford University turned Zuckerberg down and went their own way; their company is now worth $16 billion.

How Facebook Turns Nerds into Very Rich Guys

There are at least two other major players in Silicon Valley that have major ties to Facebook. Matt Cohler, who served as Facebook’s first vice president of product management, is now a venture capitalist worth $700 million. His investments include Dropbox, Quora, and Instagram. Former Facebook Chief Technology Officer Adam D’Angelo founded Quora. Quora is now worth $900 million, and D’Angelo is worth $600 million, according to Forbes.

Finally, there’s Palmer Luckey, the video gamer who used Kickstarter to raise the money to start his virtual reality headset company Oculus. In July 2014 Facebook paid Luckey, who was just 21, $2.3 billion for Oculus. Luckey is now worth $700 million, but he still wears Hawaiian shirts and flip flops to the office. At Facebook, Luckey is developing a new generation of video and video game technology.

It looks as if Facebook and WhatsApp are now the places to go if you want to be very rich. The humble messaging app and the simple social network have become two of Silicon Valley’s hottest and most successful money machines. Those associated with them are raking in the cash.

One has to wonder how many other billionaires WhatsApp and Facebook will create. Will those people be located in Silicon Valley or perhaps elsewhere, such as India or even Africa? Since WhatsApp is now a platform that connects the entire world, it will facilitate international trade and communication, which will generate fantastic new fortunes in the future to rival those it has already created.

Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the American blogosphere were shocked in February 2014 when Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg spent $21 billion in stock and cash to buy an obscure messaging app company called WhatsApp.

Strangely enough, even many tech savvy Americans had never heard of WhatsApp even though it was an all-American company based in San Jose, California.

Yet those who understood WhatsApp’s capabilities, including Zuckerberg himself, were wondering if Facebook had underpaid. A year later many of the same business writers who had knocked the WhatsApp acquisition were praising Mr. Zuckerberg’s vision and foresight.

Not buying WhatsApp would have been a disaster for Facebook because a competitor, probably Alphabet, the company formerly known as Google, would have gobbled up the messaging solution, TechCrunch writer Josh Constine noted . Facebook, which is a computer-based solution, needed WhatsApp to enter the brave new world of the mobile Internet.

So How Much Is WhatsApp Really Worth?

Okay, so how much is WhatsApp really worth? That’s a fair question because just one week before Zuckerberg acquired WhatsApp, the Japanese ecommerce company Rakuten spent $900 million to buy another messaging solution called Viber. It spent less than one 20^th of what Facebook spent.

Interestingly enough, Viber’s level of growth actually exceeded that of WhatsApp. Viber had around 280 million users at the time of purchase, while WhatsApp had 450 million. Since then, WhatsApp’s user base has nearly doubled, to around 900 million in September 2015, while Viber’s has grown to 664 million , or more than tripled.

Despite these numbers, Forbes contributor Eric Jackson believes that WhatsApp could one day be worth $100 billion. The reason Jackson believes that is that Viber is not a messaging app, while WhatsApp is.

The key difference is that Viber was designed to make phone calls, while WhatsApp is a messaging or chat solution. WhatsApp is designed to facilitate communication instantly across platforms, while Viber is designed only for calls.

Jackson thinks that messaging apps will serve the function in the mobile web that search engines like Google and Yahoo and browsers such as AOL served in the old Internet; that is, to act as a gateway to the Internet, the first place people go to look for information.

WhatsApp will become the introduction to the Internet for tens of millions of people in the developing world, particularly Africa, just as AOL or Yahoo introduced many Americans to the Web. The real opportunity for Facebook to make money comes after people have signed on to WhatsApp.

Is WhatsApp the New Facebook?

This makes WhatsApp a lot like Facebook. Facebook is basically a browser that is disguised as a social media solution. Zuckerberg’s genius was to lure large numbers of people that were uncomfortable with information solutions like email and Google online.

Once he set up his network, Zuckerberg looked for opportunities to monetize it, such as selling advertising. Observers like Jackson believe Zuckerberg will follow the lead of Asian solutions such as WeChat and start monetizing WhatsApp once it hits a certain level of users.

Some Ways Facebook Could Harness WhatsApp for Ecommerce

There are a number of ways Facebook could monetize WhatsApp that its Asian peers are pioneering. China’s WeChat added an Apple Pay-style solution that lets people transfer money and pay for everything from taxis to snacks from vending machines. An app called Line has been running flash sales in Thailand.

These flash sales have attracted 5.5 million customers for such popular brands as Maybelline lipstick and Line’s own branded merchandise, Tech in Asia reported . It also distributed discount coupons for a brick-and-mortar supermarket chain through the same mechanism.

Line’s partnership with an ecommerce company called aCommerce could be a model for Facebook and WhatsApp. Its success has been rather astounding; Line has around 22 million users in Thailand, meaning that nearly one fourth of its customers are participating in the flash sales.

One strong possibility is that Facebook and WhatsApp could partner with an ecommerce company such as Amazon, eBay, or Alibaba or a major retailer such as Walmart, which is making a huge push into ecommerce, to develop ecommerce. Walmart is spending billions to construct giant ecommerce fulfillment in the United States. It will need some means of attracting customers; WhatsApp could be it.

This means WhatsApp’s value could be far higher than we thought, and Mr. Jackson’s $100 billion speculation could be justified. It remains to be seen if such technology could work in the United States, although at least one American retailer, Target, has experimented with such flash sales.

Another potential partner is Google, which already operates Google Shopping and is experimenting with its own delivery service. Google and Facebook recently entered into an alliance to share some data about WhatsApp and Android.

Why WhatsApp Could Be So Valuable

The ecommerce potential is what could make WhatsApp so valuable. If Facebook could charge a small amount, say 1¢ on each transaction, it could open up a vast stream of revenue.

Line could have generated $550,000 in revenue from its flash sales in Thailand alone. Just imagine what Facebook could do if it could set up similar ecommerce arrangements in Argentina, where 78% of Internet users utilize WhatsApp, or Germany, where 56% of those online take advantage of WhatsApp.

Obviously, there are serious challenges here; for example, sales taxes and local laws governing ecommerce. Delivery is also a major concern. How do you get the items purchased through the flash sale to the customer? Does the customer pick them up at a brick-and-mortar store, or are they shipped?

Either way, there will have to be some sort of logistical infrastructure in place to get the merchandise to the customer. This makes WhatsApp valuable because Facebook could simply open it up for ecommerce. It would take a small cut of the purchase price in exchange for connecting the buyer to the seller, a business model already pioneered by Amazon and eBay.

This, of course, brings us to the real value of WhatsApp. How much is each customer worth? That remains to be seen because we are only scratching the surface of mobile ecommerce right now.

Therefore it is impossible to tell how much WhatsApp is truly worth because nobody has determined what the limits of mobile ecommerce are, although my guess is that WhatsApp could ultimately be worth a lot more than that $100 million.