{"id":3103,"date":"2018-08-02T10:20:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T06:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=3103"},"modified":"2018-08-02T10:20:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T06:20:02","slug":"whatsapp-to-charge-businesses-for-sending-messages-to-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/08\/02\/whatsapp-to-charge-businesses-for-sending-messages-to-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp to charge businesses for sending messages to customers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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hatsApp will begin to charge companies for responding to customer queries through its app.<\/p>\n

Parent company Facebook, whose user growth has begun to stagnate,\u00a0is hoping the move will make Whatsapp the firm’s next big moneymaker.<\/p>\n

The app will allow businesses to send out messages to customers and to automate sales or queries, giving companies access to a potential base of WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion users.<\/p>\n

Businesses will still only be able to message people who have contacted them first. They\u00a0can respond to messages from users for free for up to 24 hours, but will be charged a fixed rate by country for messages sent after that.\u00a0The messages will cost between 0.5 cents to 9 cents (0.3p to 7p).<\/p>\n

They will also be able to buy advertisements\u00a0on Facebook\u2019s News Feed that allow users to message them via WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp has long been at the\u00a0centre of a struggle at Facebook\u00a0on how best to turn the free app to revenue generation. WhatsApp initially had a subscription fee when it was bought by Facebook for $22bn in 2014, but this was scrapped under Facebook ownership in order to accelerate the app’s growth rate.<\/p>\n

Since then there has been internal debate over how to generate revenue from\u00a0WhatsApp. WhatsApp is encrypted, meaning adverts cannot be targeted in the same way as they can on Facebook.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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B<\/span>oth of WhatsApp’s co founders,\u00a0\u00a0Jan Koum\u00a0and Brian Acton, have recently left Facebook, paving a way for changes on the app.<\/p>\n

Allowing businesses to pay to send customers messages gives WhatsApp a way to begin to eek out revenues.\u00a0Uber,\u00a0online store Wish and Booking.com are among the first companies to use the service. the new facilities.<\/p>\n

“Businesses will pay to send certain messages so they are selective and your chats don’t get cluttered,” WhatsApp said. “In addition, messages will remain\u00a0end-to-end encrypted\u00a0and you can block any business with the tap of a button.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Whatsapp<\/div>
WhatsApp co-founder and Jan Koum<\/span>\u00a0CREDIT:<\/span>\u00a0AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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T<\/span>he app is popular around the world, but it has exploded in popularity in countries like India. WhatsApp also plans to allow adverts in the Status area of the app, starting next year.<\/p>\n

The Status bar, which lets users post a story similar to on Instagram, has grown in popularity in recent years with around 450 million users. “\u201cWhatsApp does not currently run ads in Status though this represents a future goal for us, starting in 2019,” a WhatsApp spokesman said.<\/p>\n

The news comes after a bruising period for Facebook, which last week\u00a0lost tens of billions of dollars in value over investor fears\u00a0its global growth is slowing.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Telegraph<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

hatsApp will begin to charge companies for responding to customer queries through its app. Parent company Facebook, whose user growth has begun to stagnate,\u00a0is hoping the move will make Whatsapp the firm’s next big moneymaker. The app will allow businesses to send out messages to customers and to automate sales or queries, giving companies access …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3105,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions\/3105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}