So WhatsApp launched Status few days back.
While the founders stated that the launch was a result of discussion between the founders on how to improve the status feature, you can’t ignore the fact that it was timed to dampen Facebook’s rival, Snap’s IPO.
But then, few days into Status and I think people have given up on the feature (anecdotally speaking). Primarily because :
It makes one really think hard.
Which is so anti-whatsappish. WhatsApp UX and features have always been very simplistic and no-nonsense that it has always been considered as gold standard.
Plus, here are some observations that I have w.r.t WhatsApp status vs. Snapchat users:
WhatsApp users are boring boys and girls.
Or, uncle and aunties?
Let’s just say that they aren’t as interesting as Snapchat users.
They aren’t as quirky and expressive as Snapchat users are.
And that also shows up in the number of forwarded jokes you see on WhatsApp.
People (atleast in my network/and I have a pretty active network of founders to students to investors) are struggling to come up with ‘quirky’ status messages. Least WhatsApp should have done was to seed a few?
For Facebook, this is probably the last attempt to kill Snapchat (launched a competitive feature few days before Snap’s IPO, for sure not a friendly thing!) – but the company just needs to admit that they don’t have cool young users anymore.
They probably launched this in a hurry (Kill Snapchat) and as several reports suggests, WhatsApp is planning to revert to old ‘status’ message.
Facebook earlier tried launching a similar feature (ephemeral posts) and failed. Even WhatsApp failed at this.
The writing is on the wall.
Facebook won’t die – but might just become irrelevant (youth isn’t with FB network).
What’s your take on WhatsApp status?
