{"id":12748,"date":"2014-02-25T05:05:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T05:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/whatsapp-to-allow-free-voice-calls-by-mid-year\/"},"modified":"2014-02-25T05:04:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T05:04:53","slug":"whatsapp-to-allow-free-voice-calls-by-mid-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/whatsapp-to-allow-free-voice-calls-by-mid-year\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp to Allow Free Voice Calls By Mid-Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{Fresh from a US$19-billion takeover by Facebook, mobile messaging service {WhatsApp } said Monday it will launch free voice calls by mid-year.}}<\/p>\n

The introduction of free calls, revealed on the opening day of the four-day World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, would match rival application Viber\u2019s similar offering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to introduce voice on {WhatsApp } in the second quarter of this year,\u201d {WhatsApp } founder Jan Koum said.<\/p>\n

Facebook, whose 29-year-old billionaire creator Mark Zuckerberg was the star speaker on the opening day of the industry fair, announced a stock and cash purchase of {WhatsApp} on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive years ago we had no users, no product,\u201d said Koum.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we have 465 million active users,\u201d he said, adding that the company still had no marketing, relying mostly on word of mouth to prosper.<\/p>\n

{WhatsApp} had not planned any changes in the light of the Facebook takeover, Koum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark really understands that for {WhatsApp} to stay successful it really needs to stay independent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Viber, one of {WhatsApp\u2019s} key rivals, offers free voice and messaging.<\/p>\n

Japanese online shopping group Rakuten announced this month it would buy Viber\u2019s Cyprus-based developer, Viber Media, for US$900 million.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

{wirestory}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Fresh from a US$19-billion takeover by Facebook, mobile messaging service {WhatsApp } said Monday it will launch free voice calls by mid-year.}} The introduction of free calls, revealed on the opening day of the four-day World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, would match rival application Viber\u2019s similar offering. \u201cWe are going to introduce voice on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050555,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12748.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12748"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}