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WhatsApp could become one of the most important news sources of the 21^st century because it is the place many people go for relevant information. In fact, WhatsApp is already becoming the 21^st century equivalent of a newspaper, something people check and watch regularly.

“The research found that communication services namely mobile IM (instant messaging), social networks are the first thing consumers check on their smartphones in the morning,” the researchers who conducted Deloitte’s Mobile Consumer Survey 2015 in India reported .

According to Deloitte, 78% of people checked their phones within 15 minutes of waking up, and 52% checked them five minutes before going to sleep. That indicates instant messaging services are now a major source of information for people, and since WhatsApp is the world’s most popular IM solution, with 900 million users, it could be the world’s most popular news source.

Is WhatsApp the World’s Newspaper?

An interesting development is that WhatsApp is becoming the “world’s newspaper.” The WhatsApp newsfeed is the front page, the groups are the various sections such as sports and business, and the cartoons and humor sections would be the comics. Feeds on politics could be the editorials.

This writer in the African nation of Zimbabwe admits that he uses WhatsApp’s newspaper feed as his major source of news. He notes that WhatsApp is the first app he opens in the morning.

One reason why WhatsApp is so popular in countries like Zimbabwe is that it can reach locations such as remote rural areas that newspapers cannot. It might be available in places where there is no television reception, and it is more affordable; all you need to access it is a wireless signal, a phone, and a data plan—things even the poorest person can often afford.

WhatsApp News Could Be Politically Disruptive

Another reason why news feeds from services like WhatsApp are growing in popularity in developing nations is that governments have a hard time controlling them. In dictatorships like Zimbabwe, traditional media such as television and newspapers are little more than propaganda outlets for the ruler.

Those that want real news turn to solutions like WhatsApp. Governments can have a very hard time controlling such media because there are no printing presses to smash, no transmitters to shut down, and no journalists to arrest or murder. Nor can thugs tell who has such an app on her phone and who does not.

This could make WhatsApp politically disruptive as well as economically and technologically disruptive. It could undermine oppressive governments by giving people the true story about a political upheaval, a corruption scandal, or a military defeat.

Everybody His or Her Own Journalist

The most disruptive feature of news via instant messaging is that it gives everybody the ability to become his or her own journalist. Every time a person sends an article, a video, or a picture of a news event to friends or members of a WhatsApp group, he or she is acting as a journalist.

That person is deciding what content to send, how to send it, and where to send it. In other words, he or she is now a news editor. That does make old media obsolete; it just makes it less relevant because people can now pick and choose the news that they want to see. For example, a person interested in football no longer has to read just the commentators from his or her local newspaper.

This does not make the traditional media obsolete; it simply changes the way people use it. Instead of getting all their news from one or two sources as they formerly did, people are now free to pick and choose from a wide variety of news sources. It also means that many more news sources are available; for example, somebody who lives in Denver or New Delhi can now have the latest news from The New York Times sent to his smartphone as often as he wants.

British newspapers such as The Independent are already creating WhatsApp newsfeed for specific topics such as politics and elections. This allows them to reach tens of millions of potential new readers at little or no cost and expand their customer base around the world.

That, of course, expands the reach of big news outlets like The Times at the expense of local organizations. It also turns the hierarchy in the media upside down because the consumers can simply ignore the editors and consume only the news that they want.

Another potentially more disruptive development is that people can start sending out their news. For example, a person that sees an event happening, such as a crime or an accident, becomes a journalist by sending out video and photographs of the event over WhatsApp. All a person needs to become a journalist is a smartphone with a camera and a wireless connection, something a large percentage of the world’s population has.

News for the Whole World

A major side effect of the spread of WhatsApp is that a major news story such as a disaster, a terrorist attack, or the outbreak of war could spread to a large percentage of the world’s population almost instantly. Therefore a major development such as the assassination of a public figure could affect hundreds of millions of people at once.

A negative development here is that it could now be possible for a brilliant hoaxer to fool hundreds of millions of people at once with a false news story. All it would take is a story compelling enough to go viral. When it was exposed, such a hoax could destroy hundreds of millions of people’s trust in news and perhaps in WhatsApp itself.

The First Global News Media

The reach of WhatsApp as a means of disseminating the news is absolutely staggering. This simple app could reach more people than all the newspapers in the world, and it can do it quickly and instantly.

It looks as if WhatsApp could become the world’s most popular and influential source of news in a very short time. When that happens, it will completely change news itself by giving much of the world’s population an instant connection to news. Another staggering development here is that WhatsApp could form the first truly global news source. For the first time in history, people all over the world—in Sydney, Mumbai, New York, London, and Frankfurt—could be getting their news from the same place.

That means WhatsApp is far more than just instant messaging. It could be the first truly global news media, which could have interesting repercussions for everybody on the planet.

It is easy to see why ecommerce entrepreneurs would be interested in WhatsApp. The instant messaging solution is one of the most popular and fastest-growing communication channels in the world.

WhatsApp now reaches 900 million people around the world, and some observers have noted that it is growing faster than Facebook did. That, of course, is one of the reasons why Facebook purchased WhatsApp. It is also why so many entrepreneurs are looking to the app as the next frontier in ecommerce.

The Next Frontier of Ecommerce

Beyond its sheer numbers, WhatsApp has the possibility of reaching vast numbers of people in untapped markets. This includes the majority of smartphone users in some markets; statistics provided by Statista indicate that WhatsApp’s customers include 78% of smartphone users in South Africa, 75% of Internet users in Malaysia, and 72% of the smartphone users in Singapore. WhatsApp reaches both fast-growing developing countries like South Africa and some very affluent nations; it reaches 57% of the users in German, 61% of the Internet users in the Netherlands, and 71% of those in Hong Kong.

That means WhatsApp could provide access to a vast and incredibly diverse customer base. Therefore the question facing marketers and entrepreneurs is: How do I reach that customer base through WhatsApp?

This question becomes more important because WhatsApp plays by different rules than traditional online media. Its founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, are famously hostile to advertising. They designed WhatsApp as an ad-free communication medium, and their new boss, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has vowed to keep it that way.

Brain Acton and Jan Koum at the office.

“Our explicit strategy for the next several years is to focus on growing and connecting everyone in the world,” Zuckerberg said of his plans for WhatsApp. That means the potential markets WhatsApp will reach will grow, but ads will not be available. Instead, entrepreneurs will have to turn to other strategies, such as word of mouth.

How to Use WhatsApp for Ecommerce
Naturally, many entrepreneurs will be asking, if I cannot use WhatsApp for ecommerce, what can I use it for? Actually, there are many ways that entrepreneurs can use WhatsApp to improve their businesses and solve problems, including:

• Faster, better, and cheaper communication with customers. One of the big problems facing many ecommerce companies is maintaining contact with customers. In many cases, owners or managers might not be aware of problems because customers have no way of reaching them. WhatsApp can provide a fast way for customers to provide feedback or report problems.

Around 18% of ecommerce companies in Brazil now use ecommerce for customer service, TechinBrazil reported . One reason for this is that Brazil is not as connected as other countries. WhatsApp is the only way that some customers there may have of reaching businesses.

For example, a customer can send in a message about a missed delivery or a lost package. A big advantage to WhatsApp is that it can provide communication with customers that do not have access to computers, including many less affluent individuals and those that might be away from the office or home.

More importantly, WhatsApp can provide such a communication channel at a very low price. It can take the place of expensive and sometimes cumbersome customer service solutions. Since WhatsApp is simple and widespread, customers already know how to use it.

• Improved delivery. One of the fastest-growing areas in ecommerce is same day or local delivery of products such as groceries. This provides opportunities for couriers and persons providing goods or services in the community, such as plumbers or cleaning services. In India, WhatsApp is already being used to organize pickup and delivery for food.

One growing area of ecommerce will be organizing local groups or networks for such services. WhatsApp groups could become a quick and easy means of doing that which costs entrepreneurs little to organize.

• Creation of news and entertainment content for WhatsApp. In 2013 WhatsApp created what it calls broadcasting. This allows a person to reach 100% of the members of a group. Since advertising cannot be sent, entrepreneurs will have to send out something else, such as content. Some news organizations such as the BBC and British newspapers are using this feature to send content to new markets such as Indian customers, Practical Ecommerce reported.

Unfortunately, advertising is not available, but such content could be sent out as free samples to attract customers. A person could send out a piece of a game, a brief clip from a video, or a shortened version of an article to familiarize new customers with the product. It could have an invitation to subscribe to the product or service. Such freemium marketing has been very popular for some products, like the popular Angry Birds video games.

• Word of mouth marketing. Almost all entrepreneurs know that world of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing of all, but it is also the hardest to harness. For successful word of mouth, you need to get real people talking about your products, which can be tough.

Creation of a WhatsApp group through Broadcast Lists can change that. One way to use Broadcast Lists would be to send out a free sample or an offer such as a coupon or a description of a special that your business is offering. A great way to engage customers is to set up a WhatsApp Broadcast List that only features news about sales or discounts that your business is offering.

Another is to invite customers to spread the word about your business on WhatsApp; for example, to ask them to write reviews of products or their experience with your services and put them online or to tell everybody they know about the specials you are offering.

These are just a few of the ways that entrepreneurs can take advantage of the power of WhatsApp. Another great way to learn new uses for WhatsApp is to study its use by businesspeople in countries like India and Brazil, where the app is widely utilized. Some of those ideas could easily be applied in countries like America, where the app is not that common.

WhatsApp is going to create tremendous new opportunities for ecommerce. Those that take advantage of it have the potential to make a lot of money and greatly expand their markets.