WhatsApp’s plan for ad placements is coming to fruition. This has been confirmed in a comment made by Chris Daniel, VP WhatsApp in an email interview session with Shelley Singh, EU Bureau.
WhatsApp’s monetization strategies are clear; WhatsApp business and WhatsApp status.
WhatsApp business was launched early this year exclusively for business. Recently its payment platform was launched alongside. However, this gave users the idea that the regular whatsApp would be left to operate the way it was built prior to its acquisition by Facebook — to be a place for private conversations like you have in your home. But I guess that has been defeated now.
Also, recall that whatsApp’s Co-founder Brian Acton had disagreements with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg(CEO) and Sheryl Sandberg (COO) over their intention to monetize the messaging service by placing ads before he left the company.
Prior to WhatsApp acquisition, a yearly $1 fee was charged for subscription until Facebook acquired it for $22bn, and made it free. However, for a platform with over 1.5 billion users, capitalists will see that as a big opportunity to generate revenue for the company. Or maybe Mark Zuckerberg is just an opportunist.
Whichever way, “In the future, we’ll place ads in WhatsApp Status, which is our Stories feature. We think this is an appropriate place for ads within WhatsApp.” said Chris Daniel, VP WhatsApp.
