And how killing your golden goose isn’t a good idea.
Yesterday someone wrote an article about WhatsApp stifling innovation in India -https://medium.com/pen-bold-kiln-press/is-whatsapp-stifling-the-art-of-the-possible-in-india-ae0924fc7741
The reason for WhatsApp’s massive success is simplicity.
There’s no extra fluff, no design antics. Everyone can use it. As they see fit. My mom who usually struggles with her android phone didn’t need any onboarding/lessons — it just worked.
And people have found different use-cases for it. My broadband provider agent used it to collect my info — photo, name and plan for getting a new connection. It was simple & more importantly quick. I use it to share photos of a trip — just select the photos and send! A taxi driver i met, sends me newsworthy videos and links everyday. Finlok uses it to follow up with their customers. A restaurant downstairs uses it to take orders.
Now let’s look at some of the points the article makes -
1. Link to a real-world identity — it already does! There’s no better identity than the phone no. Not everyone has a PAN, Aadhar is a bit controversial & one can’t call/msg/reach your Aadhar No!
2. Business api — WhatsApp is cautious in it’s approach. And for good reason. While business sending you your ticket sounds like a nice idea, pretty soon unscrupulous businesses with green ticks are spamming you with promotional messages. Oops.
Get Dinesh’s stories in your inbox
4. Enable Celebs! — laughable considering the backbone is a phone no. Celebs have Instagram for this. And Facebook. And adding celebs is a trick when you don’t have engagement!
Payment is the only point that makes sense. Money is as good as text chat. But again there are refund issues etc which Whatsapp has to figure out. That’s one of the reason they’ve waited for SBI to come onboard. It wants maximum coverage.
I’m not going into the rest of them. It’s basically like saying — let’s do everything. Yes do everything, if you’re a marketing platform not if you’re a popular communication tool.
WhatsApp is already the default way of communication, commerce, news, discovery, co-ordination and much more. It doesn’t need your bells & whistles.
If you liked my article, please hit the clap button multiple times.
You can follow me on Twitter or Linkedin
Notes:
Social products at such massive scale are delicate organisms. A small innocuous change and it’s a completely different thing. So proceed with caution.
Some smart folks on twitter made similar points. 👏👏
