The largest instant messaging application in the world, WhatsApp has turned ten years old today, and the Facebook-owned company is celebrating its achievement on almost every social media platform. The messaging application, which came in the market ten years ago grew like wildfire and is now used by virtually every smartphone holder without exception. Through these years, WhatsApp has grown and evolved as new technologies and demands came through. Some of these features introduced by WhatsApp were high in demand, and every single time, WhatsApp did not fail to impress its users. Moreover, the service is one of its kind as it did not resort to using advertisements for revenue and ensured utmost privacy for its users. On its tenth anniversary, we will take a look at some of the features of WhatsApp which made it into a messaging behemoth that it is today.
End to End Encryption
As concerns around the world about privacy and tech companies were growing, WhatsApp gained the trust of its users by implementing the End-to-End encryption on its platform. This move ensured that the messages sent by the user were not intercepted in between and were only decrypted when they reached the intended recipient’s phone. The introduction of this feature ensured that the user’s data was in safe hands and that WhatsApp was not misusing it.
Video and Voice Calling
As demand for more and more communication and social media grew, WhatsApp also ventured into other avenues and introduced features which would make the app into an all-in-one solution, thus enter voice and video calling. WhatsApp facilitated easy video and voice calling for its users and recently also introduced the group calling feature for its users.
WhatsApp Statuses
Starting with Snapchat, and then Instagram when temporary statuses with 24 hour timestamp grew popular, WhatsApp brought it onboard its app so that users could share links, pictures and videos with their friends which would disappear after a day thus facilitating a more dynamic and quick form of communication which was what the trend demanded. Currently, WhatsApp statuses are very widely used by almost everyone.
WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp also introduced a unique app for small businesses as an enterprise solution which allowed these businesses to establish communication with their customers and track many business metrics. The use of WhatsApp Business meant that these companies could reduce their turn-around time and could easily push information, offers and much more about their products and services.
WhatsApp Payments
Last year, WhatsApp also ventured into payments through UPI and established a straightforward method of account-to-account payment transfer for its users. Now instead of using another app, users can very quickly transfer the required amount to their friends or family.
Delete Messages for Everyone
The concept of deleting direct messages from the recipient's inbox became wildly popular on Instagram, and it was seen as a very useful functionality. Being under the wings of Facebook, the feature was also introduced in WhatsApp with some tweaks and now it allows the users to delete the sent message within a set deadline of one hour and seven minutes thus saving you from mistakenly sending messages which were meant for someone else.
Forward Limit for Stopping Fake News
WhatsApp also came into the waters of controversy when the platform got a reputation as the primary source of fake news. However, the company set measures and introduced features to counter the spread of false information and remains dedicated to the same. Some features like the forward limit on messages to a maximum of five people was introduced to limit the spreading of fake news.
These were some of the major features introduced throughout the ten years of WhatsApp which helped the messaging giant garner perhaps the most massive user base which any messaging application has. Let us know in the comments down below about the features that you like in WhatsApp and some others which you would like to see in it.
