Whats App- Communication and messaging have taken a revolutionary change

Author: Naira Ness

The internet and various social media platforms have made it easier for us to connect. It has also made finding people across the globe easier. One major messaging change was brought about by WhatsApp. Most of us are familiar with this app and have found it very useful in our day to day lives. WhatsApp changed our ways of communication as we made a shift from SMS or our regular text messages to this app. Let’s see a bit more in detail about this app

How does WhatsApp Work?

If you’re someone who wants to start your own venture like WhatsApp it is very important to know how does WhatsApp work. Here, we will discuss the technical background of WhatsApp. Also how it supports billions of connections simultaneously.

WhatsApp uses ejabberd server, it enables message transfer instantly between two or more user. All the data transfer takes place on a real-time basis. XMPP ie. Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol have been to make sure that the app gets the best network security. It also supports encrypted messaging.

WhatsApp uses client-server which enables a user to communicate. Here, basically, the user who wants to send a message sends the text or media file to the server. Then the server queues the message on the receiving number. The receiver will get a notification when they have an internet connection. Once the receiver gets the message it is instantly deleted from the server. This helps the server to keep WhatsApp’s resources to the minimum. The data transfer on WhatsApp is an end to end encrypted which means the messages don’t get stored on the server. These messages are only decoded when the receiver gets the message.

WhatsApp enables billions of conversations to take place simultaneously. The smooth processing of the same lies in the message queue length that the app can support. WhatsApp uses XMPP as it’s primary protocol. HTML5 WebSockets is also used to support two-way communication.

WhatsApp uses Mnesia DB for handling the heavy-duty database management. Mnesia is a multi-user distributed DBMS. Erlang has the same as it’s default DB. Mnesia is the best to use for database management because it enables quicker request responses. This results in enhanced overall performance of the application. YAWS is used to store multimedia files.

The Features of WhatsApp
  • Direct Communication
  • One-To-One Channel
  • Messaging
  • Messaging
  • Video Calling
  • One-to-Many Channel
  • Group Chats
  • Broadcast Messaging
  • Indirect Communication
  • Privacy and Encryption

If you are attracted to the facts and figures of WhatsApp and also want to start a similar Website like WhatsApp then take a look at a customizable ready-to-go WhatsApp clone script for your social media startup.

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WhatsApp is one of the most historic stories in the history of the internet. Founders Brian Acton & Jan Koum worked at Yahoo once upon a time. Their application for jobs in Facebook was rejected & ironically, in 2014 Facebook handed $19 billion to them to acquire their app WhatsApp which bossed over a billion users and 450 million monthly active users, which till date remains the largest ever acquisition. Derived from the common phrase used to interact "what’s up", Koum & Acton managed to convince 5 colleagues of their former employers Yahoo & a Russian coder from RentACoder.com, they managed to raise $250,000 and launched WhatsApp in 2009.

The initial programming work of the app was outsourced, but the founders decided to design the logo themselves. In 2009, the app store from apple was relatively new but Koum saw huge future in that. He saw how apps can change the way people use their phones. In the beginning, the app was designed to just show status next to a person’s name in the contact list. The status could be busy, available, battery low etc.

They still face major competition in China, Japan & Korea where WeChat is massive. China has banned Facebook & WhatsApp sighting security reasons. Iran has banned it from their hatred for American capitalism. These are huge markets that WhatsApp is currently missing on, especially China. The acquisition may not be the solution here as the problems are with the ideologies. But the lack of grip in these countries is pretty much cancelled out by the massive usage in big countries like India.

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