Facebook has openly admitted over and over that they have been generating profit only through advertisements that is done on their platform. This is one of the biggest reasons the platform has been involved in several scandals involving political advertisement. After its successful plans for providing advertisement opportunities for businesses on Facebook and Instagram, the company was planning on spreading its plan on WhatsApp. The idea was to create a way to initiate advertisements between stories or in between conversations. The company had hired a whole team just for implementing the ads on WhatsApp to help in monetizing their popular service. However, around a year ago, both WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Kaoum were seen strongly opposing this idea. Both co-founders announced leave from their roles at Facebook and this brought serious hurdles in the plan of monetizing the app. Plus, users on social media were reacting fiercely regarding this annoying update.
The move of disbanding the team that was previously working on the WhatsApp ad system was quite surprising for a lot of people who were anticipating Facebook to come up with an iconic advertisement model. In 2014, Facebook had acquired WhatsApp for around 19 billion dollars and it has been since searching for ways to start earning through such a huge user base. Previously, Facebook was firm about their decision of monetizing the app however, the status has since changed. Initially, when the decision was made public, Facebook even released a teaser to demonstrate how they were planning to place an ad on WhatsApp.
However, Facebook has informed WSJ that they are currently focusing on developing features that will help in improving business communication with the customer better and more rewarding. The app is also looking forward to providing a payments service soon in various countries. Although, the company is not totally canceling the ad plans for WhatsApp, they are only making it a long term goal because they feel that the app is not yet ready for advertisement or monetizing. Most of the experts are saying Facebook has bigger plans but the protest of the two co-founders was a great shock for them. In the future, however, Facebook is looking forward to bring more acceptability for ads in users and this is later going to benefit them in the case of WhatsApp.
Photo: REUTERS/Thomas White
Read next: Facebook Will Send Notification for Logins Through Third-Party App
The move of disbanding the team that was previously working on the WhatsApp ad system was quite surprising for a lot of people who were anticipating Facebook to come up with an iconic advertisement model. In 2014, Facebook had acquired WhatsApp for around 19 billion dollars and it has been since searching for ways to start earning through such a huge user base. Previously, Facebook was firm about their decision of monetizing the app however, the status has since changed. Initially, when the decision was made public, Facebook even released a teaser to demonstrate how they were planning to place an ad on WhatsApp.
However, Facebook has informed WSJ that they are currently focusing on developing features that will help in improving business communication with the customer better and more rewarding. The app is also looking forward to providing a payments service soon in various countries. Although, the company is not totally canceling the ad plans for WhatsApp, they are only making it a long term goal because they feel that the app is not yet ready for advertisement or monetizing. Most of the experts are saying Facebook has bigger plans but the protest of the two co-founders was a great shock for them. In the future, however, Facebook is looking forward to bring more acceptability for ads in users and this is later going to benefit them in the case of WhatsApp.
Photo: REUTERS/Thomas White
Read next: Facebook Will Send Notification for Logins Through Third-Party App
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