Concept in Definition ABC

Who has heard of SMS messages? Okay, okay, it might not be long enough that these stopped being preeminent in the mobile communications so that there are people who do not know them, but let's reformulate the question: who used?

Those responsible for the "death" of SMS (no longer used as a messaging service) are instant messaging services over IP protocol. But, specifically, the main actor of this function has a name: WhatsApp.

Born in 2010, his name derives from the English expression “what's up", A colloquial greeting that is the equivalent of"how's it going?”In Castilian language

WhatsApp starts from a very simple premise: take it to the field of smartphones philosophy from exchange of text messages that already made solutions such as MSN Messenger, ICQ or AOL INstant Messenger in the field of desktop computers.

Unlike these solutions, in which the username was not linked to the device from which we We connected, being able to even play with different accounts, in WhatsApp the user number is the phone number, linking from this way it counts to a particular number and even to a particular device, since it does not support multi-device use if not with him

client web or native clients, as we will see later.

Users were quickly seduced because, unlike SMS that were made to pay for each shipment, the conversations carried out in WhatsApp they entered the data rate or, even, if you did not have this, you could take advantage of the Wi-Fi connection to continue talking.

Quickly, there was a mass migration to WhatsApp that caused the once lucrative SMS business (lucrative for operators, of course) to plummet.

The possibility of sending photos, videos and audio in messages, and later files of various kinds, undoubtedly contributed to the success of the service.

But if one wonders the reason for the success of WhatsApp, we must look for it in the fact that it was the first of its kind

Since the alternatives such as Telegram arrived late, even surpassing in benefits to the creation of Jan Koum.

Nor can we underestimate the fact that, despite not being free, it offered a free year of trial to users

A whole year, in technology, is a very long period, so it did not cost much for users to accustomed in such a way that when the end of the trial period came, they hired the service by paying a annual quota.

Something that helped the US $ 0.99 that the app cost until January 2016, date in which even this condition fell, leaving it as free.

One of the aspects that has traditionally been criticized the most for WhatsApp is the lack of system security

That it suffered some serious failures and, in addition, the main criticism that was directed at it was that the communications were not encrypted, which meant text messages were transmitted sure, a Format It does not require great technical knowledge to force unauthorized access to information.

This particular was resolved in April 2016, when the service began to use end-to-end encryption in all its communications.

Another criticism that has been directed at this program is that it did not have an application or interface for a desktop operating system

A point resolved first with a web client that came out in January 2015, and for whose activation it is necessary to read a QR code on our smartphone from the WhatsApp client, which provides the information to link that computer and the browser with the account.

The solution was very welcomed by the users, not in vain one of the handicaps of WhatsApp is that its until then exclusivity on the mobile it was tiring to have long conversations and write very long texts, a task for which the smartphone.

In May 2016, the native clients for Windows and Mac OS X were introduced, which follow the same structure than the web service, being considered by many a simple WhatsApp packaging Web.

In fact, these clients do nothing more than act as a “mirror” for the messages stored in the mobileSince they don't store anything anywhere else and our messages continue to reach the mobile client, even if we read them first from the desktop client or the web.

A proof of this is that neither of the two previous solutions can work if the WhatsApp of our cell phone is not also working.

In February 2014, and shortly before the Mobile World Congress, the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook was announced

An operation that Mark Zuckerberg explained extensively at the Barcelona event, and that together with Jan Koum they celebrated in style in a restaurant in the Catalan capital, a anecdote which made the front page of every newspaper in the world the next day.

Both Zuckerberg and Koum assured that the acquisition would not change the use of WhatsApp at all, and that there would be no integration. However, over time and logically, we have started to see some changes.

The most recent are new terms of use that allow Facebook to access WhatsApp user data.

Interestingly, and to a certain extent, WhatsApp is still a certain competition to Facebook Mesenger, the IP instant messaging solution from Mark Zuckerberg's company.

Photos: Fotolia - Kakigori / robu_s

Themes on WhatsApp