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127-426: WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger ) is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta . It allows users to send text , voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices , and can be accessed from computers. The service requires

254-678: A cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. The service was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California , which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$ 19.3 billion. It became the world's most popular messaging application by 2015, and had more than 2   billion users worldwide by February 2020, confirmed four years later by new 200M registrations per month. By 2016, it had become

381-513: A microphone , videotelephony using webcams , file transfer, location sharing, image and video transfer, voice notes, and other features. IM is conducted over the Internet or other types of networks (see also LAN messenger ). Depending on the IM protocol, the technical architecture can be peer-to-peer (direct point-to-point transmission) or client–server (when all clients have to first connect to

508-533: A "permanent acceleration" that would continue after the pandemic. Facebook hired aggressively, growing from 48,268 employees in March 2020 to more than 87,000 by September 2022. Following a period of intense scrutiny and damaging whistleblower leaks , news started to emerge on October 21, 2021, about Facebook's plan to rebrand the company and change its name. In the Q3 2021 Earnings Call on October 25, Mark Zuckerberg discussed

635-653: A $ 1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms ) announced it was acquiring WhatsApp for US$ 19 billion, its largest acquisition to date. At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment. Facebook, which was advised by Allen & Co, paid $ 4 billion in cash, $ 12 billion in Facebook shares, and, advised by Morgan Stanley , an additional $ 3 billion in restricted stock units granted to WhatsApp's founders Koum and Acton. Employee stock

762-548: A 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms ; the company additionally endeavored into non-VR hardware, such as the discontinued Meta Portal smart displays line and partners with Luxottica through the Ray-Ban Stories series of smartglasses . Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on January 1, 2012. The preliminary prospectus stated that the company sought to raise $ 5 billion, had 845 million monthly active users, and

889-457: A CIM provides the advantage of being inexpensive to implement and has little need for investing in new hardware or server software. IM is increasingly becoming a feature of enterprise software rather than a stand-alone application. Instant messaging has proven to be similar to personal computers, email, and the World Wide Web , in that its adoption for use as a business communications medium

1016-494: A barrier faced by users without payment cards . He also said that the app would not display any third-party ads, and that it would have new features such as the ability to communicate with businesses. On May 18, 2017, the European Commission announced that it was fining Facebook €110 million for "providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover" in 2014. The Commission said that in 2014 when Facebook acquired

1143-404: A broader effort to counter Russian covert influence operations, which had intensified since the invasion. At its 2024 Connect conference, Meta presented Orion, its first pair of augmented reality glasses. Though Orion was originally intended to be sold to consumers, the manufacturing process turned out to be too complex and expensive. Instead, the company pivoted to producing a small number of

1270-424: A chat, including games like Tetris and Blackjack . Discord features multiple games built inside the "activities" tab in voice channels . A relatively new feature to the world of instant messaging, peer-to-peer payments are available to do both financial tasks on top of communication. The lack of a service fee also makes these advantageous to financial applications. IM services such as Facebook Messenger and

1397-606: A competitor to Twitter. Meta announced its artificial intelligence model Llama 2 in July 2023, available for commercial use via partnerships with major cloud providers like Microsoft. It was the first project to be unveiled out of Meta's generative AI group after it was set up in February. It would not charge access or usage but instead operate with an open-source model to allow Meta to ascertain what improvements need to be made. Prior to this announcement, Meta said it had no plans to release Llama 2 for commercial use. An earlier version of Llama

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1524-480: A component of their overall platform, such as Facebook 's Facebook Messenger , who also own WhatsApp . Others have a direct IM function as an additional adjunct component of their social networking platforms , like Instagram , Reddit , Tumblr , TikTok , Clubhouse and Twitter ; this also includes for example dating websites , such as OkCupid or Plenty of Fish , and online gaming chat platforms. Private chat allows private conversation with another person or

1651-578: A contact list also known as a "buddy list" or "friend list") or in chat rooms , and can be standalone apps or integrated into a wider social media platform, or in a website where it can for instance be used for conversational commerce . Originally the term "instant messaging" was distinguished from " text messaging " by being run on a computer network instead of a cellular/mobile network, being able to write longer messages, real-time communication, presence ("status"), and being free (only cost of access instead of per SMS message sent). Instant messaging

1778-522: A controversial new Privacy Policy allowing WhatsApp to share data with its parent company, Facebook; users who did not accept by February 8, 2021, would lose access to the app. This led many users to ditch WhatsApp and move to other services such as Signal and Telegram . However, Facebook said the WhatsApp policy would not apply in the EU, since it violates the principles of GDPR . Facing criticism, WhatsApp postponed

1905-806: A day on Slack, which is about 67% more time than they spend using email . Instant messaging is implemented in many video-conferencing tools. A study of chat use during work-related videoconferencing found that chat during meetings allows participants to communicate without interrupting the meeting, plan action around common resources, and enables greater inclusion. The study also found that chat can cause distractions and information asymmetries between participants. Users sometimes make use of internet slang or text speak to abbreviate common words or expressions to quicken conversations or reduce keystrokes. The language has become widespread, with well-known expressions such as ' lol ' translated over to face-to-face language. Emotions are often expressed in shorthand, such as

2032-546: A falsified video of US president Joe Biden , even after it had been proven to be fake, attracted criticism and concern. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the company, both when it was known as Facebook, Inc., and as Meta Platforms. In March 2020, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) sued Facebook, for significant and persistent infringements of the rule on privacy involving

2159-463: A former Facebook employee's testimony in Congress that the company refused to take responsibility. The company noted that tools have been developed for parents to keep track of their children's activity on Instagram and set time limits in addition to Meta's "Take a break" reminders. In addition, the company is providing resources specific to eating disorders as well as developing AI to prevent children under

2286-734: A global economic downturn and "ads signal loss". Plans to lay off a further 10,000 employees began in April 2023. The layoffs were part of a general downturn in the technology industry, alongside layoffs by companies including Google , Amazon , Tesla , Snap , Twitter and Lyft . Starting from 2022, Meta scrambled to catch up to other tech companies in adopting specialised artificial intelligence hardware and software. It had been using less expensive CPUs instead of GPUs for AI work, but that approach turned out to be less efficient. In 2023, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner imposed record EUR 1.2 billion fine on Meta for transferring data from Europe to

2413-541: A greater-than-expected decline in profits in the fourth quarter of 2021. It reported no growth in monthly users, and indicated it expected revenue growth to stall. It also expected measures taken by Apple Inc. to protect user privacy to cost it some $ 10 billion in advertisement revenue, an amount equal to roughly 8% of its revenue for 2021. In meeting with Meta staff the day after earnings were reported, Zuckerberg blamed competition for user attention, particularly from video-based apps such as TikTok . The 27% reduction in

2540-439: A group. The privacy aspect can also be enhanced in a number of ways such as end to end encryption by default. Public and group chat features allow users to communicate with multiple people at a time. Many major IM services and applications offer a call feature for user-to-user voice calls, conference calls, and voice messages. The call functionality is useful for professionals who utilize the application for work purposes and as

2667-412: A hands-free method. Videotelephony using a webcam is also possible by some. Some IM applications include in-app games for entertainment. Yahoo! Messenger for example introduced these where users could play a game and viewed by friends in real-time. MSN Messenger featured a number of playable games within the interface. Facebook's Messenger has had a built in option to play games with people in

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2794-581: A keynote presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp was closely related to the Internet.org vision. A TechCrunch article said about Zuckerberg's vision: The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic internet services that would be free of charge to use – "a 911 for the internet". These could be

2921-687: A major reason for the extent of the issue. Meta has acquired multiple companies (often identified as talent acquisitions ). One of its first major acquisitions was in April 2012, when it acquired Instagram for approximately US$ 1 billion in cash and stock. In October 2013, Facebook, Inc. acquired Onavo , an Israeli mobile web analytics company. In February 2014, Facebook, Inc. announced it would buy mobile messaging company WhatsApp for US$ 19 billion in cash and stock. Later that year, Facebook bought Oculus VR for $ 2.3 billion in cash and stock, which released its first consumer virtual reality headset in 2016. In late November 2019, Facebook, Inc. announced

3048-448: A meaningful way at all". In May 2019, Facebook founded Libra Networks , reportedly to develop their own stablecoin cryptocurrency . Later, it was reported that Libra was being supported by financial companies such as Visa , Mastercard , PayPal and Uber . The consortium of companies was expected to pool in $ 10 million each to fund the launch of the cryptocurrency coin named Libra. Depending on when it would receive approval from

3175-551: A new Status feature similar to Snapchat and Facebook stories. In July 2017, WhatsApp added support for file uploads of all file types, with a limit of 100 MB. Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments. Later in September 2018, WhatsApp introduced group audio and video call features. In October,

3302-621: A new design consisting of a darker palette. In October 2020, WhatsApp rolled out a feature allowing users to mute both individuals and group chats forever. The mute options are "8 hours", "1 week", and "Always". The "Always" option replaced the "1 year" option that was originally part of the settings. In March 2021, WhatsApp started rolling out support for third-party animated stickers, initially in Iran, Brazil and Indonesia, then worldwide. Instant messaging Instant messaging systems facilitate connections between specified known users (often using

3429-414: A new job. Acton encouraged him to wait for a "few more months". In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman's Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push notifications , allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user's network would be notified when a user's status changed. This new facility, to Koum's surprise,

3556-1042: A new platform called Microsoft Office Live Communications Server , and released Office Communications Server 2007 in October 2007. Oracle Corporation also jumped into the market with its Oracle Beehive unified collaboration software. Both IBM Lotus and Microsoft have introduced federation between their EIM systems and some of the public IM networks so that employees may use one interface to both their internal EIM system and their contacts on AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. As of 2010, leading EIM platforms include IBM Lotus Sametime , Microsoft Office Communications Server , Jabber XCP and Cisco Unified Presence. Industry-focused EIM platforms such as Reuters Messaging and Bloomberg Messaging also provide IM abilities to financial services companies. Crackers (malicious or black hat hackers) have consistently used IM networks as vectors for delivering phishing attempts, drive-by URLs , and virus-laden file attachments, with over 1100 discrete attacks listed by

3683-410: A notable new example of traditional IM originally designed for desktops. Most IM protocols are proprietary and are not designed to be interoperable with others, meaning that many IM networks have been incompatible and users have been unable to reach users on other networks. As of 2024, fragmentation of IM services means that a typical user is likely to have to use more networks than ever, including

3810-447: A partnership with Startup India to provide 500 startups with Facebook ad credits of $ 500 each. In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who hadn't updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who hadn't updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020. The company also reported that Windows Phone operating systems would no longer be supported after December 31, 2019. WhatsApp

3937-695: A phone's Contacts menu, showing if a person was at work or on a call. Their discussions often took place at the home of Koum's Russian friend Alex Fishman in West San Jose. They realized that to take the idea further, they would need an iPhone developer. Fishman visited RentACoder.com, found Russian developer Igor Solomennikov, and introduced him to Koum. Koum named the app WhatsApp to sound like " what's up ". On February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing , Koum considered giving up and looking for

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4064-434: A reported 100 million users of instant messaging in 2001. As of 2003, AIM was the globally most popular instant messenger with 195 million users and exchanges of 1.6 billion messages daily. By 2006, AIM controlled 52 percent of the instant messaging market, but rapidly declined shortly thereafter as the company struggled to compete with other services. Instant messaging integrated in other services started picking up pace in

4191-416: A separately installed piece of software, or a browser-based client. They are normally centralised networks run by the servers of the platform's operators, unlike peer-to-peer protocols like XMPP . These usually only work within the same IM network, although some allow limited function with other services (see #Interoperability ). Third party client software applications exist that will connect with most of

4318-410: A slate of improvements for the iOS version of WhatsApp were released: including the ability to search for messages in your chat history, trimming long videos to a sendable size, the ability to cancel media messages as they upload or download, and previewing photos before sending them. In March 2012, WhatsApp improved its location-sharing function, allowing users to share not only their location, but also

4445-469: A social networking service like Facebook, a messaging service, maybe search and other things like weather. Providing a bundle of these free of charge to users will work like a gateway drug of sorts – users who may be able to afford data services and phones these days just don't see the point of why they would pay for those data services. This would give them some context for why they are important, and that will lead them to pay for more services like this – or so

4572-593: A type of graphical user interface (GUI), albeit much more primitive than the later Unix , Windows and Macintosh based GUI IM software. OLMs were what Q-Link called "Plus Services" meaning they charged an extra per-minute fee on top of the monthly Q-Link access costs. Development of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol began in 1989, and this would become the Internet's first widespread instant messaging standard. Modern, Internet-wide, GUI -based messaging clients as they are known today, began to take off in

4699-725: A unified standard. In 2022, the European Union passed the Digital Markets Act , which largely came into effect in early 2023. Among other things, the legislation mandates certain interoperability between the largest IM platforms in use in Europe. As a result, in March 2024, Meta Platforms opened up its WhatsApp and Messenger networks to be interoperable. There are two ways to combine the many disparate protocols: Some approaches allow organizations to deploy their own, private instant messaging network by enabling them to restrict access to

4826-523: A website accruing 2.7 billion likes and comments daily. After the IPO, Zuckerberg would retain 22% of the total shares and 57% of the total voting power in Facebook. Underwriters valued the shares at $ 38 each, valuing the company at $ 104 billion, the largest valuation yet for a newly public company. On May 16, one day before the IPO, Facebook announced it would sell 25% more shares than originally planned due to high demand. The IPO raised $ 16 billion, making it

4953-479: Is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California . The company owns and operates Facebook , Instagram , Threads , and WhatsApp , among other products and services. Advertising accounts for 97.8 percent of its revenue. Originally known as the parent company of the Facebook service, as Facebook, Inc., it was rebranded to its current name in 2021 to "reflect its focus on building

5080-443: Is in direct contrast to email , where conversations are not in real-time, and the perceived quasi- synchrony of the communications by the users (although many systems allow users to send offline messages that the other user receives when logging in). Earlier IM networks were limited to text-based communication, not dissimilar to mobile text messaging . As technology has moved forward, IM has expanded to include voice calling using

5207-783: The Big Tech companies in 2020. The lobbying team includes top congressional aide John Branscome, who was hired in September 2021, to help the company fend off threats from Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration. In August 2024, Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to Jim Jordan indicating that during the COVID-19 pandemic the Biden administration repeatedly asked Meta to limit certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, on Facebook and Instagram . In 2024 Meta's decision to continue to disseminate

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5334-752: The Cambridge Analytica fiasco . Every violation of the Privacy Act is subject to a theoretical cumulative liability of $ 1.7 million. The OAIC estimated that a total of 311,127 Australians had been exposed. On December 8, 2020, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 46 states (excluding Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and South Dakota), the District of Columbia and the territory of Guam , launched Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook as an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. The lawsuit concerns Facebook's acquisition of two competitors— Instagram and WhatsApp —and

5461-520: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a foundation established by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan , and became one of their projects. Following the rebranding announcement, CZI announced that it had already decided to deprioritize the earlier Meta project, thus it would be transferring its rights to the name to Meta Platforms, and the previous project would end in 2022. Soon after the rebranding, in early February 2022, Meta reported

5588-590: The Facebook Messenger platform. In January 2018, WhatsApp launched WhatsApp Business for small business use. In April 2018, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum announced he would be leaving the company. By leaving before November 2018, due to concerns about privacy, advertising, and monetization by Facebook, Acton and Koum gave up $ 1.3 billion in unvested stock options. Facebook later announced that Koum's replacement would be Chris Daniels. On November 25, 2019, WhatsApp announced an investment of $ 250,000 through

5715-726: The Irish Council for Civil Liberties , Wikimedia Europe, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center , signed a 2024 letter to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) expressing concern that this subscriber model would undermine privacy protections, specifically GDPR data protection standards. Meta removed the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in February 2024, citing repeated violations of its Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy. As of March, Meta

5842-495: The Nasdaq exchange. The stock struggled to stay above the IPO price for most of the day, forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the price. At the closing bell, shares were valued at $ 38.23, only $ 0.23 above the IPO price and down $ 3.82 from the opening bell value. The opening was widely described by the financial press as a disappointment. The stock nonetheless set a new record for trading volume of an IPO. On May 25, 2012,

5969-629: The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory authority to operate as a payments service, the Libra Association had planned to launch a limited format cryptocurrency in 2021. Libra was renamed Diem, before being shut down and sold in January 2022 after backlash from Swiss government regulators and the public. During the COVID-19 pandemic , the use of online services including Facebook grew globally. Zuckerberg predicted this would be

6096-411: The U.S. patent office . Meanwhile, other companies developed their own software; ( Excite , Microsoft (MSN) , Ubique , and Yahoo! ), each with its own proprietary protocol and client ; users therefore had to run multiple client applications if they wished to use more than one of these networks. However, the open protocol IRC continued to be popular by the millenium, and its most popular graphical app

6223-546: The WeChat ' super-app ' for example offer a payment feature. Though the term dates from the 1990s, instant messaging predates the Internet, first appearing on multi-user operating systems like Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) and Multiplexed Information and Computing Service ( Multics ) in the mid-1960s. Initially, some of these systems were used as notification systems for services like printing, but quickly were used to facilitate communication with other users logged into

6350-665: The metaverse ", an integrated environment linking the company's products and services. Meta ranks among the largest American information technology companies, alongside other Big Five corporations Alphabet ( Google ), Amazon , Apple , and Microsoft . The company was ranked #31 on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in 2023. In 2022, Meta was the company with the third-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$ 35.3 billion. Meta has also acquired Oculus (which it has integrated into Reality Labs ), Mapillary , CTRL-Labs, and

6477-498: The server (often with the IM network entirely behind their firewall ) and administer user permissions. Other corporate messaging systems allow registered users to also connect from outside the corporation LAN, by using an encrypted, firewall-friendly, HTTPS-based protocol. Usually, a dedicated corporate IM server has several advantages, such as pre-populated contact lists, integrated authentication, and better security and privacy. Instant messaging has changed how people communicate in

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6604-503: The "Swipe to Reply" option was added to the Android beta version, 16 months after it was introduced for iOS. On October 25, 2018, WhatsApp announced support for Stickers. But unlike other platforms WhatsApp requires third-party apps to add Stickers to WhatsApp. In October 2019, WhatsApp officially launched a new fingerprint app-locking feature for Android users. In early 2020, WhatsApp launched its "dark mode" for iPhone and Android devices –

6731-515: The 1980s, some systems incorporated chat features which were similar to instant messaging; Freelancin' Roundtable was one prime example. The first such general-availability commercial online chat service (as opposed to PLATO, which was educational) was the CompuServe CB Simulator in 1980, created by CompuServe executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in Columbus, Ohio . As networks developed,

6858-687: The Facebook-WhatsApp-Instagram entity did not exist, and prove that harmed competition or consumers. On December 24, 2021, a court in Russia fined Meta for $ 27 million after the company declined to remove unspecified banned content. The fine was reportedly tied to the company's annual revenue in the country. In May 2022, a lawsuit was filed in Kenya against Meta and its local outsourcing company Sama . Allegedly, Meta has poor working conditions in Kenya for workers moderating Facebook posts. According to

6985-550: The IM Security Center in 2004–2007. Hackers use two methods of delivering malicious code through IM: delivery of viruses, trojan horses , or spyware within an infected file, and the use of "socially engineered" text with a web address that entices the recipient to click on a URL connecting him or her to a website that then downloads malicious code. IM connections sometimes occur in plain text , making them vulnerable to eavesdropping. Also, IM client software often requires

7112-907: The Middle East, revealing a gap in Meta’s enforcement in developing regions. An Iraqi nonprofit Tech4Peace’s founder, Aws al-Saadi helped Ahmed-Adnan and others, but the restoration process was slow, leading to significant financial losses for many victims, including prominent figures like Ammar al-Hakim . This situation highlighted Meta’s challenges in balancing global growth with effective content moderation and protection. On 16 September 2024, Meta announced it had banned Russian state media outlets from its platforms worldwide due to concerns about "foreign interference activity." This decision followed allegations that RT and its employees funneled $ 10 million through shell companies to secretly fund influence campaigns on various social media channels. Meta's actions were part of

7239-509: The Quantum Link client software ran on a Commodore 64 , using only the Commodore's PETSCII text-graphics, the screen was visually divided into sections and OLMs would appear as a yellow bar saying "Message From:" and the name of the sender along with the message across the top of whatever the user was already doing, and presented a list of options for responding. As such, it could be considered

7366-495: The UK. Meta agreed to the sale, though it stated that it disagrees with the decision itself. In May 2023, Giphy was divested to Shutterstock for $ 53   million. In November 2020, Facebook, Inc. announced that it planned to purchase the customer-service platform and chatbot specialist startup Kustomer to promote companies to use their platform for business. It has been reported that Kustomer valued at slightly over $ 1 billion. The deal

7493-464: The United States without adequate protections for EU citizens. In March 2023, Meta announced a new round of layoffs that would cut 10,000 employees and close 5,000 open positions in order to make the company more efficient. Meta revenue surpassed analyst expectations for the first quarter of 2023 after announcing that it was increasing its focus on AI. On July 6, Meta launched a new app, Threads ,

7620-773: The Unix "talk" command line program, which was popular in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some BBS chat programs (i.e. Celerity BBS ) also used a similar interface. Modern implementations of real-time text also exist in instant messengers, such as AOL's Real-Time IM as an optional feature. In the latter half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the Quantum Link online service for Commodore 64 computers offered user-to-user messages between concurrently connected customers, which they called "On-Line Messages" (or OLM for short), and later "FlashMail." Quantum Link later became America Online and made AOL Instant Messenger (AIM, discussed later). While

7747-414: The abbreviation LOL , BRB and TTYL ; respectively laugh(ing) out loud, be right back, and talk to you later. Some, however, attempt to be more accurate with emotional expression over IM. Real time reactions such as ( chortle ) ( snort ) ( guffaw ) or ( eye-roll ) have been popular at one point. Also there are certain standards that are being introduced into mainstream conversations including, '#' indicates

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7874-651: The acquisition of the game developer Beat Games, responsible for developing one of that year's most popular VR games, Beat Saber . In Late 2022 after Facebook Inc rebranded to Meta Platforms Inc, Oculus was rebranded to Meta Quest. In May 2020, Facebook, Inc. announced it had acquired Giphy for a reported cash price of $ 400 million. It will be integrated with the Instagram team. However, in August 2021, UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated that Facebook, Inc. might have to sell Giphy, after an investigation found that

8001-488: The age of 13 signing up for Facebook or Instagram. In June 2022, Meta settled a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice . The lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, alleged that the company enabled housing discrimination through targeted advertising, as it allowed home owners and landlords to run housing ads excluding people based on sex, race, religion, and other characteristics. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that this

8128-703: The allegations, a Meta representative said, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse." In June 2022, Sheryl Sandberg , the chief operating officer of 14 years, announced she would step down that year. Zuckerberg said that Javier Olivan would replace Sandberg, though in a "more traditional" role. In March 2022, Meta (except Meta-owned WhatsApp ) and Instagram were banned in Russia and added to Russian list of terrorist and extremist organizations for alleged Russophobia and hate speech (up to genocidal calls) amid ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine . Meta appealed against

8255-477: The app to launch an in-app shopping process, where they can order groceries. In 2022, WhatsApp added the ability for users to turn off their online status. In March 2024, Meta announced that WhatsApp would let third-party messaging services enable interoperability with WhatsApp, a requirement of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). This allows users to send messages between other messaging apps and WhatsApp while maintaining end-to-end encryption. In November 2010,

8382-627: The ban but it was upheld by a Moscow court in June of the same year. Also in March 2022, Meta and Italian eyewear giant Luxottica released Ray-Ban Stories , a series of smartglasses which could play music and take pictures. Meta and Luxottica parent company EssilorLuxottica declined to disclose sales on the line of products as of September 2022, though Meta has expressed satisfaction with its customer feedback. In July 2022, Meta saw its first year-on-year revenue decline when its total revenue slipped by 1% to $ 28.8bn. Analysts and journalists accredited

8509-564: The best-performing technology stocks of the year, with its share price up 150 percent. Its stock reached an all-time high in January 2024, bringing Meta within 2% of achieving $ 1 trillion market capitalization. Meta Platforms launched an ad-free service in Europe in November 2023, allowing subscribers to opt-out of personal data being collected for targeted advertising. A group of 28 European organizations, including Max Schrems' advocacy group NOYB ,

8636-487: The central server). Major IM services are controlled by their corresponding companies and usually follow the client–server model. The term "Instant Messenger" is a service mark of Time Warner and may not be used in software not affiliated with AOL in the United States. For this reason, in April 2007, the instant messaging client formerly named Gaim (or gaim) announced that they would be renamed " Pidgin ". Modern IM services generally provide their own client, either

8763-423: The company into a "must-own stock". Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase described it as "the next great blue-chip". Writers at TechCrunch , on the other hand, expressed skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up to, and Facebook will likely need to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation." Trading in the stock, which began on May 18, was delayed that day due to technical problems with

8890-525: The company to start a nonprofit group, later revealed as the Signal Foundation , which developed the WhatsApp competitor Signal . He explained his reasons for leaving in an interview with Forbes a year later. WhatsApp also announced a forthcoming business platform to enable companies to provide customer service at scale, and airlines KLM and Aeroméxico announced their participation in the testing. Both airlines had previously launched customer services on

9017-495: The company would be changing its internal motto from "Move fast and break things" to "Move fast with stable infrastructure". The earlier motto had been described as Zuckerberg's "prime directive to his developers and team" in a 2009 interview in Business Insider , in which he also said, "Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough." Lasso was a short-video sharing app from Facebook similar to TikTok that

9144-758: The company's share price which occurred in reaction to the news eliminated some $ 230 billion of value from Meta's market capitalization . Bloomberg described the decline as "an epic rout that, in its sheer scale, is unlike anything Wall Street or Silicon Valley has ever seen". Zuckerberg's net worth fell by as much as $ 31 billion. Zuckerberg owns 13% of Meta, and the holding makes up the bulk of his wealth. According to published reports by Bloomberg on March 30, 2022, Meta turned over data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about

9271-629: The company. In October 2009, Acton persuaded five former friends at Yahoo! to invest $ 250,000 in seed funding , and Acton became a co-founder and was given a stake. He officially joined WhatsApp on November 1. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles , Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later. Subsequently, WhatsApp for Symbian OS was added in May 2010, and for Android OS in August 2010. In 2010 Google made multiple acquisition offers for WhatsApp, which were all declined. To cover

9398-495: The corporation. Similar to the e-mail filtering vendors, the IM security providers focus on the risks and liabilities described above. With rapid adoption of IM in the workplace, demand for IM security products began to grow in the mid-2000s. By 2007, the preferred platform for the purchase of security software had become the " computer appliance ", according to IDC, who estimated that by 2008, 80% of network security products would be delivered via an appliance. By 2014 however,

9525-551: The cost of sending verification texts to users, WhatsApp was changed from a free service to a paid one. In December 2009, the ability to send photos was added to the iOS version. By early 2011, WhatsApp was one of the top 20 apps in the U.S. Apple App Store. In April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested about $ 8 million for more than 15% of the company, after months of negotiation by Sequoia partner Jim Goetz . By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. Sequoia invested another $ 50 million, and WhatsApp

9652-450: The deal between the two companies would harm competition in display advertising market. Facebook, Inc. was fined $ 70 million by CMA for deliberately failing to report all information regarding the acquisition and the ongoing antitrust investigation. In October 2022, the CMA ruled for a second time that Meta be required to divest Giphy, stating that Meta already controls half of the advertising in

9779-493: The ensuing monopolistic situation. FTC alleges that Facebook holds monopolistic power in the U.S. social networking market and seeks to force the company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp to break up the conglomerate. William Kovacic , a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, argued the case will be difficult to win as it would require the government to create a counterfactual argument of an internet where

9906-720: The glasses to be used internally. On 4 October 2024, Meta announced about its new AI model called Movie Gen, capable of generating realistic video and audio clips based on user prompts. Meta stated it would not release Movie Gen for open development, preferring to collaborate directly with content creators and integrate it into its products by the following year. The model was built using a combination of licensed and publicly available datasets. On October 31, 2024, ProPublica published an investigation into deceptive political advertisement scams that sometimes use hundreds of hijacked profiles and facebook pages run by organized networks of scammers. The authors cited spotty enforcement by Meta as

10033-608: The hope goes. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. He also said that new mobile phones would be sold in Germany with the WhatsApp brand, and that their ultimate goal was to be on all smartphones . In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users. By early January 2015, WhatsApp had 700 million monthly users and over 30 billion messages every day. In April 2015, Forbes predicted that between 2012 and 2018,

10160-495: The hundreds of millions of dollars spent on content for early adopters. He also urged the company to execute fast and invest heavily in the vision, to shut out HTC , Apple , Google and other competitors in the VR space . Regarding other players' participation in the metaverse vision, he called for the company to build the " metaverse " to prevent their competitors from "being in the VR business in

10287-703: The internet. It was also not available for iOS users on launch, due to limitations from Apple. Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015. By June 2016, the company's blog reported more than 100 million voice calls per day were being placed on WhatsApp. On November 10, 2016, WhatsApp launched a beta version of two-factor authentication for Android users, which allowed them to use their email addresses for further protection. Also in November 2016, Facebook ceased collecting WhatsApp data for advertising in Europe. Later that month, video calls between two accounts were introduced. On February 24, 2017, (WhatsApp's 8th birthday), WhatsApp launched

10414-412: The late 2000s. Myspace , the then-largest social networking service , launched Myspace IM in 2006, shortly after Google 's Gtalk , which was integrated into its Gmail webmail interface. Facebook Chat launched in 2008, providing IM to users of the social network. By 2010, traditional instant messaging was in sharp decline in favor of these new messaging features on wider social networks, which at

10541-486: The lawsuit, 260 screeners were declared redundant with confusing reasoning. The lawsuit seeks financial compensation and an order that outsourced moderators be given the same health benefits and pay scale as Meta employees. In June 2022, 8 lawsuits were filed across the U.S. over the allege that excessive exposure to platforms including Facebook and Instagram has led to attempted or actual suicides, eating disorders and sleeplessness, among other issues. The litigation follows

10668-619: The level of safety offered by instant messengers was still extremely poor. According to a scorecard made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation , only 7 out of 39 instant messengers received a perfect score, whereas the most popular instant messengers at the time only attained a score of 2 out of 7. A number of studies have shown that IM services are quite vulnerable for providing user privacy. Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc. , doing business as Meta , and formerly named Facebook, Inc. , and TheFacebook, Inc. ,

10795-435: The location of places, such as restaurants or hotels. In August 2013, WhatsApp added voice messages to their apps, giving users a way to send short audio recordings directly in their chats. In January 2015, WhatsApp launched a web client that allowed users to scan a QR code with their mobile app, mirroring their chats to their browser. The web client was not standalone, and required the user's phone to stay on and connected to

10922-425: The loss to its advertising business, which has been limited by Apple's app tracking transparency feature and the number of people who have opted not to be tracked by Meta apps. Zuckerberg also accredited the decline to increasing competition from TikTok. On October 27, 2022, Meta's market value dropped to $ 268 billion, a loss of around $ 700 billion compared to 2021, and its shares fell by 24%. It lost its spot among

11049-785: The major IM services. There is the class of instant messengers that uses the serverless model, which doesn't require servers, and the IM network consists only of clients. There are several serverless messengers: RetroShare , Tox , Bitmessage , Ricochet , Ring . See also: LAN messenger . Some examples of popular IM services today include Signal , Telegram , WhatsApp Messenger , WeChat , QQ Messenger , Viber , Line , and Snapchat . The popularity of certain apps greatly differ between different countries. Certain apps have emphasis on certain uses - for example Skype focuses on video calling , Slack focuses on messaging and file sharing for work teams, and Snapchat focuses on image messages. Some social networking services offer messaging services as

11176-492: The messaging app, it "falsely claimed it was technically impossible to automatically combine user information from Facebook and WhatsApp." However, in the summer of 2016, WhatsApp had begun sharing user information with its parent company, allowing information such as phone numbers to be used for targeted Facebook advertisements. Facebook acknowledged the breach, but said the errors in their 2014 filings were "not intentional". In September 2017, WhatsApp's co-founder Brian Acton left

11303-411: The metaverse, a digital extension of the physical world by social media , virtual reality and augmented reality features. "Meta" had been registered as a trademark in the United States in 2018 (after an initial filing in 2015) for marketing, advertising, and computer services, by a Canadian company that provided big data analysis of scientific literature . This company was acquired in 2017 by

11430-426: The mid-1990s with PowWow , ICQ , and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Similar functionality was offered by CU-SeeMe in 1992; though primarily an audio/video chat link, users could also send textual messages to each other. AOL later acquired Mirabilis , the authors of ICQ; establishing dominance in the instant messaging market. A few years later ICQ (then owned by AOL) was awarded two patents for instant messaging by

11557-457: The most widely used smartphone apps: in 2018 for instance there were 980 million monthly active users of WeChat and 1.3 billion monthly users of WhatsApp , the largest IM network. Instant messaging (IM), sometimes also called "messaging" or " texting ", consists of computer-based human communication between two users ( private messaging ) or more ( chat room or "group") in real-time, allowing immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply. This

11684-462: The need for formal agreements, and security concerns as reasons for making changes. There have been several attempts in the past to create a unified standard for instant messaging, including: Critics say AOL's slowness in embracing interoperability has caused setbacks to other companies trying to grow their businesses. AOL has said it supports the development of an interoperable system for all IM networks but has cited privacy and security concerns as

11811-622: The need to download the apps and signing up, to stay in touch with all their contacts. However, there had been attempts for solutions. Multi-protocol clients can use any of the IM protocols by using additional local libraries for each protocol. Examples of multi-protocol instant messenger software include Pidgin and Trillian , and more recently Beeper . These third-party clients have often been unable to keep up due to proprietary protocol restrictions and getting locked out of it. For instance, in 2015 WhatsApp started banning users who were using unofficial clients. Major IM providers usually cite

11938-521: The need to run multiple clients. Video calling using a webcam also started taking off during this time. Microsoft's NetMeeting , which was focused on business " web conferencing ", was one of the earliest; the company then launched Windows Messenger , coming preloaded on Windows XP , featuring video capabilities. Yahoo! Messenger added video capabilities in 2001, and by 2005 such features were built-in also in AIM, MSN Messenger , and Skype . There were

12065-446: The ongoing criticism of the company's social services and the way it operates, and pointed to the pivoting efforts to building the metaverse – without mentioning the rebranding and the name change. The metaverse vision and the name change from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms was introduced at Facebook Connect on October 28, 2021. Based on Facebook's PR campaign, the name change reflects the company's shifting long term focus of building

12192-572: The primary means of Internet communication in regions including the Americas , the Indian subcontinent , and large parts of Europe and Africa . WhatsApp was founded in February 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum , former employees of Yahoo! A month earlier, after Koum purchased an iPhone , he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store . The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in

12319-508: The protocols spread with the networks. Some of these used a peer-to-peer protocol (e.g. talk , ntalk and ytalk), while others required peers to connect to a server (see talker and IRC ). The Zephyr Notification Service (still in use at some institutions) was invented at MIT's Project Athena in the 1980s to allow service providers to locate and send messages to users. Early instant messaging programs were primarily real-time text , where characters appeared as they were typed. This includes

12446-656: The reasons it's taking its time. Competitors have labeled that argument a "smoke screen." Evan Hansen, CNET , January 2001 In the early 2000s when instant messaging was quickly growing, most attempts at producing a unified standard for the-then major IM providers ( AOL , Yahoo! , Microsoft ) had failed. There was a "bitter row" between AOL and its rivals regarding the opening up of their networks. In 2000, U.S. regulatory Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed, and supported by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates , that AOL providing interoperability of its AIM and ICQ instant messengers with Microsoft's MSN Messenger

12573-471: The same issue. The allegations sparked "fury" among some investors and led to the immediate filing of several lawsuits, one of them a class action suit claiming more than $ 2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO. Bloomberg estimated that retail investors may have lost approximately $ 630 million on Facebook stock since its debut. S&P Global Ratings added Facebook to its S&P 500 index on December 21, 2013. On May 2, 2014, Zuckerberg announced that

12700-465: The same machine. CTSS facilitated communication via text message for up to 30 people. Parallel to instant messaging were early online chat facilities, the earliest of which was Talkomatic (1973) on the PLATO system, which allowed 5 people to chat simultaneously on a 512 x 512 plasma display (5 lines of text + 1 status line per person). During the bulletin board system (BBS) phenomenon that peaked during

12827-428: The stock ended its first full week of trading at $ 31.91, a 16.5% decline. On May 22, 2012, regulators from Wall Street 's Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that they had begun to investigate whether banks underwriting Facebook had improperly shared information only with select clients rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over

12954-484: The telecommunications industry would lose $ 386 billion because of "over-the-top" services like WhatsApp and Skype . That month, WhatsApp had over 800 million users. By September 2015, it had grown to 900 million; and by February 2016, one billion. On November 30, 2015, the Android WhatsApp client made links to messaging service Telegram unclickable and uncopyable. Multiple sources confirmed that it

13081-538: The third-largest in US history (slightly ahead of AT&T Mobility and behind only General Motors and Visa ). The stock price left the company with a higher market capitalization than all but a few U.S. corporations—surpassing heavyweights such as Amazon , McDonald's , Disney , and Kraft Foods —and made Zuckerberg's stock worth $ 19 billion. The New York Times stated that the offering overcame questions about Facebook's difficulties in attracting advertisers to transform

13208-585: The time were not normally called IM. For instance, AIM 's userbase had declined by more than half throughout the year 2011. Standalone instant messenger services were revived, evolving into becoming primarily being used on mobile due to the increasing use of Internet-enabled cell phones and smartphones . Often called "chat apps", to distinguish it from cellular -based SMS and MMS " texting " services, these newer services were specially designed to be run on mobile platforms, as opposed to older services like AIM and MSN; BlackBerry Messenger , released in 2005,

13335-410: The top 20 US companies by market cap, despite reaching the top 5 in the previous year. In November 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce. Zuckerberg said the decision to aggressively increase Meta's investments had been a mistake, as he had wrongly predicted that the surge in e-commerce would last beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. He also attributed the decline to increased competition,

13462-482: The update to May 15, 2021, but said they had no plans to limit functionality of users, nor nag users who did not approve the new terms. On October 4, 2021, Facebook had its worst outage since 2008 , which also affected other platforms owned by Facebook, such as Instagram and WhatsApp. In August 2022, WhatsApp launched an integration with JioMart , available only to users in India. Local users can text special numbers in

13589-465: The use of sarcasm in a statement and '*' which indicates a spelling mistake and/or grammatical error in the prior message, followed by a correction. Instant messaging products can usually be categorised into two types: Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) and Consumer Instant Messaging (CIM). Enterprise solutions use an internal IM server, however this is not always feasible, particularly for smaller businesses with limited budgets. The second option, using

13716-488: The user to expose open UDP ports to the world, raising the threat posed by potential security vulnerabilities. In the early 2000s, a new class of IT security provider emerged to provide remedies for the risks and liabilities faced by corporations who chose to use IM for business communications. The IM security providers created new products to be installed in corporate networks for the purpose of archiving, content-scanning, and security-scanning IM traffic moving in and out of

13843-482: The workplace. Enterprise messaging applications like Slack , TeleMessage , Teamnote and Yammer allow companies to enforce policies on how employees message at work and ensure secure storage of sensitive data. They allow employees to separate work information from their personal emails and texts. Messaging applications may make workplace communication efficient, but they can also have consequences on productivity. A study at Slack showed on average, people spend 10 hours

13970-477: Was mIRC . While instant messaging was mainly in use for consumer recreational purposes, in 1998 IBM launched their Lotus Sametime instant messenger software, the first popular example of enterprise-grade instant messaging. In 2000, an open-source application and open standards -based protocol called Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) was launched, initially branded as Jabber . XMPP servers could act as gateways to other IM protocols, reducing

14097-406: Was a condition for the forecoming AOL-Time Warner merger . However in 2004, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed to a deal in which Microsoft's enterprise IM server Live Communications Server 2005 would have the possibility to talk to their rival counterparts and vice versa. On October 13, 2005, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that their IM networks would soon be interoperable, using SIP/SIMPLE. This

14224-539: Was announced to be the 3rd most downloaded mobile phone app of the decade 2010–2019. In March, WhatsApp partnered with the World Health Organization and UNICEF to provide messaging hotlines for people to get information on the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic . In the same month WhatsApp began testing a feature to help users find out more information and context about information they receive to help combat misinformation. In January 2021, WhatsApp announced

14351-411: Was closed in February 2022 after regulatory approval. In September 2022, Meta acquired Lofelt, a Berlin-based haptic tech startup. In 2020, Facebook, Inc. spent $ 19.7 million on lobbying , hiring 79 lobbyists. In 2019, it had spent $ 16.7 million on lobbying and had a team of 71 lobbyists, up from $ 12.6 million and 51 lobbyists in 2018. Facebook was the largest spender of lobbying money among

14478-498: Was driven primarily by individual employees using consumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technology departments. Tens of millions of the consumer IM accounts in use are being used for business purposes by employees of companies and other organizations. The adoption of IM across corporate networks outside of the control of IT organizations creates risks and liabilities for companies who do not effectively manage and support IM use. IM

14605-701: Was finally rolled out to Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger users in July 2006. Additionally, in December 2005 by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal, it was announced that AIM and ICQ users would be able to communicate with Google Talk users. However this feature took until December 2007 to roll out. XMPP provided the best example of open protocol interoperability, having had gateways that connected to Google Talk, Lotus Sametime and others. Later, RCS had been developed by telecommunication companies as an instant messaging protocol to replace SMS , under

14732-616: Was in violation of the Fair Housing Act . Meta was handed a penalty of $ 115,054 and given until December 31, 2022, to shadow the algorithm tool. In January 2023, Meta was fined €390 million for violations of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation . In May 2023, the European Data Protection Board fined Meta a record €1.2 billion for breaching European Union data privacy laws by transferring personal data of Facebook users to servers in

14859-493: Was initially shunned by the corporate world partly due to security concerns, but by 2003 many had started embracing these new services. In response to the demand for business-grade IM and the need to ensure security and legal compliance, a new type of instant messaging, called "Enterprise Instant Messaging" ("EIM") was created when Lotus Software launched IBM Lotus Sametime in 1998. Microsoft followed suit shortly thereafter with Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging, later created

14986-428: Was intentional, not a bug, and that it had been implemented when the Android source code that recognized Telegram URLs had been identified. (The word "telegram" appeared in WhatsApp's code.) Some considered it an anti-competitive measure; WhatsApp offered no explanation. On January 18, 2016, WhatsApp's co-founder Jan Koum announced that it would no longer charge users a $ 1 annual subscription fee, in an effort to remove

15113-447: Was launched on iOS and Android in 2018 and was aimed at teenagers. On July 2, 2020, Facebook announced that Lasso would be shutting down on July 10. In 2018, the Oculus lead Jason Rubin sent his 50-page vision document titled "The Metaverse" to Facebook's leadership. In the document, Rubin acknowledged that Facebook's virtual reality business had not caught on as expected, despite

15240-506: Was one of the influential pioneers of mobile IM, and led to other companies launching services with proprietary protocols, such as WhatsApp . Mobile instant messaging surpassed SMS in global message volume by 2013. While SMS relied on traditional paid telephone services, IM apps on mobile were available for free or a minor data charge. Older IM services were eventually shut, including AIM and Yahoo! Messenger, and also Windows Live Messenger , which merged into Skype in 2013. In 2014, it

15367-572: Was pioneered in the early Internet era; the IRC protocol was the earliest to achieve wide adoption. Later in the 1990s, ICQ was among the first closed and commercialized instant messengers, and several rival services appeared afterwards as it became a popular use of the Internet. Beginning with its first introduction in 2005, BlackBerry Messenger became the first popular example of mobile -based IM, combining features of traditional IM and mobile SMS . Instant messaging remains very popular today; IM apps are

15494-590: Was released to academics. In August 2023, Meta announced its permanent removal of news content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada due to the Online News Act , which requires Canadian news outlets to be compensated for content shared on its platform. The Online News Act was in effect by year-end, but Meta will not participate in the regulatory process. In October 2023, Zuckerberg said that AI would be Meta's biggest investment area in 2024. Meta finished 2023 as one of

15621-462: Was reported that instant messaging had more users than social networks. Concurrently, rising use of instant messaging at workplaces led to the creation of new services ( enterprise application integration (EAI)) often integrated with other enterprise applications such as workflow systems, for example in Skype for Business , Slack and Microsoft Teams . Meanwhile, the launch of Discord in 2015 has marked

15748-583: Was scheduled to vest over four years subsequent to closing. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. The acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo , Facebook's research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing "unusually well". The acquisition caused many users to try, or move to, other message services. Telegram claimed that it acquired 8 million new users. and Line , 2 million. At

15875-737: Was under the investigation of the FDA for alleged use of their social media platforms to sell illegal drugs. On 16 May 2024, the European Commission began an investigation into Meta over concerns related to child safety. In May 2023, Iraqi social media influencer Esaa Ahmed-Adnan encountered a troubling issue when Instagram removed his posts, citing false copyright violations despite his content being original and free from copyrighted material. He discovered that extortionists were behind these takedowns, offering to restore his content for $ 3,000 or provide ongoing protection for $ 1,000 per month. This scam, exploiting Meta’s rights management tools, became widespread in

16002-410: Was used by users to ping "each other with jokey custom statuses like, 'I woke up late' or 'I'm on my way.'" Fishman said "At some point it sort of became instant messaging". WhatsApp 2.0, released for iPhone in August 2009, featured a purpose-designed messaging component; the number of active users suddenly increased to 250,000. Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join

16129-423: Was valued at $ 1.5 billion. Some time in 2013 WhatsApp acquired Santa Clara–based startup SkyMobius, the developers of Vtok, a video and voice calling app. In a December 2013 blog post, WhatsApp claimed that 400 million active users used the service each month. The year 2013 ended with $ 148 million in expenses, of which $ 138 million in losses. On February 19, 2014, one year after a venture capital financing round at

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