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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): ....... Why is Facebook willing to pay $19 billion for a messaging application and service that’s just 4 years old and has only 55 employees? Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp eclipses just about any other deal made for a startup in recent years.
As an instant messaging service for mobile devices, it’s attracting an enormous number of users around the world at a rapid pace. People can send texts, photos and video on WhatsApp over their phones. There are now more than 50 billion messages sent that way each day. The first year of service is free to consumers. Afterwards, it charges just $1 a year, cheaper than text service in many countries, and there is no advertising.
In the past nine months, its use has doubled to 450 million monthly users, most of them outside the U.S.
Reporter Ellis Hamburger has been covering this for The Verge. It’s a technology-centered news Web site. And he joins me now.
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