It’s so annoying when ads play between a video on YouTube or after a story on Snapchat! One moment you are watching make-up or a cooking tutorial and the next moment a cooking oil advertisement starts playing. Ugh… so annoying!
The only good thing about WhatsApp (after being free) was it being ad-free. Just to make it clear, by free it means you only needed an Internet connection like Spectrum Internet package if you don’t have you can contact Spectrum customer service number for information. However, the founders of the app have found a way to annoy the users. The status section will soon be bursting with random ads. You read that right. Before we dig deeper into this news, let’s admit first that WhatsApp has actually revolutionized the way we connect to friends and family.
Sharing Videos and Pictures Made Easy
With the advent of the ‘add photo or video’ feature on WhatsApp, people no longer had to rely on services like MMS or E-mail to send a picture or video. Anyone and everyone who has tried these ways of sharing their best-shot pictures or videos know the struggle of attaching the files and sending them. It took ages. Needless to say that it was a slow and annoying process. Under such circumstances, WhatsApp was a savior. All you did was choose to add the photo or video, select it from your photo gallery and easily send it to anyone who asked for them. This feature was a game changer as sharing memes, tweets and gifs became super easy as well. All it asked for was an Internet connection.
Businesses Connect to Customers with Ease
More often than never, you would have come across messages that were promoting a certain business or product. That is how WhatsApp aided the businesses. It made it easy for them to connect to the potential market or the existing customers. It is easy for both parties to exchange messages including pictures or videos of the product at almost free cost. Earlier, it was difficult for businesses to do so as they did not have the option to attach a video or photo with their text messages.
The interaction between Groups Made Easy
Before the introduction of WhatsApp and its group chat feature, every person had to be sent a separate message. You received separate replies as well and it was so difficult to combine the messages in one place. Conveying message from one person to another was a cumbersome job itself. And many times people misunderstood the messages! However, WhatsApp with its group chat feature made it possible for numerous amount of people to be a part of a chat. In this way, everyone could view what the other is saying.
Call Thy Friends
Calling friends residing abroad was never this cheap. Although in the early phases, the quality of the voice calls did not live up to the expectations of the people, that is not the case now. Individuals use WhatsApp to call their friends and family who live miles away from them. All they need is an Internet connection. They do not have to pay hefty bills that the mobile service companies would have otherwise charged.
The Bad and the Ugly
After changing the way that people interact with each other in positive ways, WhatsApp recently announced its forthcoming feature. And you won’t be happy to learn about it. The app will soon be launching ads in the ‘status’ section. As if the ads that played between a YouTube or a Facebook video weren’t enough.
WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 and according to news, the ad structure will be similar to that of Facebook. According to Facebook’s Vice President, this feature will allow the advertisers to reach out to more people. Currently, over 450 Mn people use WhatsApp’s ‘status’ feature and this could offer a huge opportunity for businesses to expand. However, the feature isn’t coming out this year. It will roll out somewhere in 2019. The dates remain a mystery.
While the users may find it rather annoying, the businesses would be full of joy. Think of all the more people that Spectrum can promote the Spectrum Internet Ultra to with the ads. It will help them to increase the customer base that will translate into an increased revenue for small and big businesses alike. As far as we are concerned, well there is nothing much that we can do about it except for ranting (winks).
