Smartphones have long been the dominant device for communicating on the move, outselling their pared-down feature phone counterparts for more than a decade. However, if recent reports are to be believed, a Luddite revival is driving demand for mobile devices capable of, well, not very much. So-called dumbphones can help people with their digital detox […]
WhatsApp brings Meta Verified, customized messages to small businesses in India
WhatsApp is now letting small businesses in India sign up for a Meta Verified badge and giving them the ability to send customized messages to customers. India is home to more than 65 million small and medium-sized businesses, but only about 5 million of them sell online, according to a joint report by Meta and […]
Meta will let third-party apps place calls to WhatsApp and Messenger users — in 2027
Meta on Friday published an update on how it plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European law that aims to promote competition in digital marketplaces, where the law concerns the company’s messaging apps, Messenger and WhatsApp. As Meta notes in a blog post, the DMA requires that it provide an option […]
Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp has 100M monthly active users in the US
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday on his channel that WhatsApp now has more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., a country where SMS/texts is a popular mode of communication. The announcement is the first time WhatsApp has released data about users in the U.S. The company also noted that more than […]
WhatsApp Business is changing its rates for messages as it aims to reduce marketing spam
WhatsApp Business is changing its per-conversation rates for businesses — a conversation is a 24-hour thread between sellers and users. The company is reducing rates for utility messages and raising rates for marketing messages. Meta charges businesses through four categories of messages: Marketing (offers, new products), Ulitity (order updates, account balance), authentication (one-time passwords), and […]