lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.
Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.
WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.
I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."
(Score: 1) by TheloniousToady on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:33PM
It seems that the core values of "no ads, no gimmicks, no games" that apparently made WhatsApp so successful are the very antithesis of the core values of Facebook. It's hard to see how the purchase price could ever be recouped without turning it into something fundamentally different than what it is today - by adding ads, gimmicks, and games.