Annotated Bibliography
Kovach, S. "WhatsApp Is Growing Even Faster Than Facebook Did When Facebook Was The Same Age India." Business Insider. Businessinsider.in, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
This article is written by Steve Kovach of Business Insider Magazine, which is one prominent and trusted publication in the business, information technology and above all corporate world. This article discusses how has in past few years growing at an unprecedented speed and have become of the most popular apps available for IMs. This article reflects on how WhatsApp has 450 million customers that are growing at the rate of 1 million new customers per day. Their growth rate is faster than other popular services like Gmail, Twitter, Skype and even Facebook. This gives evidence and support to the fact, why Facebook decided to shell out $19 billion to acquire the company. .
Richter, F. "Facebook Paid $42 Per WhatsApp User." Statista Infographics. Statisca.com, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
This article is written by Felix Richter of Statistica infographics, the site that covers statistics and studies from above 18,000 sources. This article displays the chart of how Facebook’s 19 billion investment in firm with 450 million customers makes the customer acquisition rate of $42 per customer. In comparison to investment made by other firms like Facebook ($141.32), Twitter (83.53) and LinkedIn ($84.95) for customer acquisition and market capitalization, this investment can come out to be a bargain.
Raghavan, S. "WhatsApp deal: Facebook’s future lies in investing in R&D - Economic Times." The Economic Times. EconomicTimes.com, 24 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
This article is written in the Economic times one of the most prominent newspaper publications. This article arises a question that how Facebook ended up paying $ 19 billion for WhatsApp. This article notes that WhatsApp has undeveloped revenue model, which lacks advertising revenue and low annual charges for subscription. The deal showcases the deeper look into the strategic shift in the social network industry and highlights Facebook’s desire to acquire messaging technologies. Thus, WhatsApp acquisition makes sense for Facebook as it is aligned with their strategic plans. This Article culminates with how Facebook throwing money at their troubles to compete and grow is short term solution, sooner or later they need to realise that their money is better served with investing in R&D.
