In what has been rather an extra ordinary move to increase its shares and competition, Facebook has made an official announcement that its acquiring watsup for about $19 billion dollars. Watsupp has been raising over $8 million since its inception in 2011 and now its worth is over $22 million dollars.
Its understood that watsup will retain its name and brand but shall be integrated with facebook.
um, and a Stanford alumnus, Brian Acton, WhatsApp is a Silicon Valley startup fairytale.

“I’ve known (WhatsApp CEO) Jan (Koum) for a long time and I’m excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected.”

He added that the service “doesn’t get as much attention in the US as it deserves because its community started off growing in Europe, India and Latin America.

“But WhatsApp is a very important and valuable worldwide communication network.

“In fact, WhatsApp is the only widely used app we’ve ever seen that has more engagement and a higher percentage of people using it daily than Facebook itself.”

The acquisition will also see Mr Koum – a former Yahoo! engineer – join Facebook’s board of directors.

“WhatsApp’s extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide,” Mr Koum said.

“We’re excited and honoured to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world.”

Facebook is known to make bold moves to thwart competitors – it famously bought Instagram for $1bn after a weekend of negotiations.