If every single person in India and every single person in the entire continent of South America installed WhatsApp on their phones, it still wouldn’t be equal to how many people actually use WhatsApp. That number is an incredible two billion active monthly users, which is insane for any app.
It seems with such a massive user base, WhatsApp has slowly drifted away from restraining itself to the concept of being a messaging app. These days, it seems the goal is to be a social network, and an upcoming “Add Yours” sticker could play another part in that.
If you use Instagram a whole lot, you’ll know that there’s a whole lot of fun that can be had in the stories section, which isn’t even what most people would consider to be the “main” app.
One of the things that gets a lot of socialization going on is the “Add Yours” sticker—here’s how it works on Instagram. I can post a picture of a delicious chicken sandwich and put an “Add Yours” button prompting you to “Show me the best thing you ate this month”. And just like that, 1 person obliges and posts it to their story, then 100 people, and then 10,000. It’s a very easy way to hop on a trend.
Well, that feature is about to be replicated in another application owned by Meta—this time, WhatsApp. Over at WABetaInfo, they’ve found that the newest beta of WhatsApp adds an extra content sticker to the mix, bringing the Add Yours sticker over from Instagram. That means people will be able to start and join trends spanning across multiple WhatsApp statuses, which will certainly be interesting to watch.
WhatsApp Is Being Very Unoriginal In Its Quest Towards Social Network Status
It’s very clear from a lot of recent and impending moves in WhatsApp that the company aims to turn the messaging app into a social network of its own kind. Obviously, I doubt that it wants to become as full-fledged as something like Instagram or Facebook, but it definitely wants to expand way beyond just letting you talk with the people you know.
Recently, a feature came to allow you to like people’s status updates on WhatsApp, as well as the ability to mention them and let them repost your statuses. Now, we’re hearing about this new sticker that’s about to be added to the app. All of these are things that IG has in some capacity. They’re useful features, no doubt, but it reeks of unoriginality and WhatsApp just pulling from the things Instagram has already done.
WhatsApp is also working on usernames to let you add other users, instead of just phone numbers, which would further make it easier to talk to people you don’t know in real life. With communities and channels in the app too, I think we might all be able to agree that WhatsApp is trying to provide ways to connect several people together, instead of just you and your loved ones. The goal is to be a social network and I’d say they might be there already.
