Mastering the art of data: the skills that will get you noticed

It’s almost a decade since a much-shared Harvard Business Review article declared data scientist the sexiest job of the 21st century. But is working with data still as novel or as exciting as it was then?

The rise of digital currencies in the emerging world

As of September 7, 2021, El Salvador will officially recognise Bitcoin as legal currency. This is a remarkable move, and one that will likely stimulate a huge amount of economic growth as Salvadoreans leapfrog from a largely cash-based society straight to a system characterised by the frictionless, finger-snap efficiency of digital currency.

Trump’s plans to ban Chinese app WeChat blocked

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to ban WeChat over concerns the ban would threaten users’ first amendment rights

Oracle returns to growth

The software maker’s quarterly revenue exceeded analysts’ expectations, as remote working drove greater demand for its cloud-computing services

Facebook fires up Snapchat rivalry with new ‘status’ feature on Whatsapp

Instant messaging app Whatsapp has introduced a new time-limited content sharing feature in an obvious attempt to compete with Snapchat

Parent company Facebook has consistently attempted to copy Snapchat's innovative features, through Instagram and now through Whatsapp too

In a bid to stave off growing competition from Snapchat, Facebook – through Whatsapp – has launched a new feature called ‘status’. The feature, unveiled on February 20, will allow users to share media to a feed, and scroll through content posted by others, much like they currently do on Instagram and Facebook. Interestingly, in an obvious imitation of Snapchat’s ‘stories’ feature launched three years ago, content will disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook launched a similar time-limited feature on Instagram last year, which was shamelessly also called ‘stories’. Though similar to that update, the recent announcement marks a huge shift for Whatsapp, given that it will change how the platform’s billion monthly users currently use the app. Up to now, consumers have used Whatsapp as a functional tool to send direct messages, either via one-on-one conversations or as part of a group. Now, with the status feature, users will begin spending more time on the platform as a source of entertainment.

Whatsapp aims to allow users to communicate with organisations that people “want to hear from”

Status thus opens the door for new business and advertising opportunities within Whatsapp – a strategy that has been in the pipeline since the platform scrapped its annual subscription fee last year. Instead of the nominal fee, which the company found to be ineffective in various countries, Whatsapp instead aims to allow users to communicate with organisations that people “want to hear from”.

“That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on Whatsapp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam”, said a Whatsapp blog on the update.

As chat bots have so far been unsuccessful, it would seem that this is the only way Whatsapp can finally monetise its mammoth global audience, despite co-founder and CEO Jan Koum being vehemently against advertisements from the very beginning.