There was a time when developers might have been envious of Instagram and its history-making acquisition by Facebook, but Facebook's recent $16 billion purchase of WhatsApp has raised the stakes even higher.
Facebook said it would continue to run the popular WhatsApp messaging app as a separate service. WhatsApp, which has been seeing a huge surge in users, may soon become a textbook case in how a developer can achieve massive success seemingly overnight.
On Twitter, developers reacted to the news of Facebook's purchase pretty much the same as consumers, starting with outright shock.
Insane! Facebook Buying WhatsApp For $19 BILLION http://t.co/YZttHissAK
— Adarsh Pallian (@pallian) February 20, 2014
Perhaps predictably, there were some developers who weren't pleased by the notion of the social networking giant adding another app to its arsenal.
Wow, here goes WhatsApp: "Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $16 billion" - http://t.co/MxmNzZ5DW2
— Tom Verhoeff (@tomverhoeff) February 19, 2014
Some even speculated that the whole thing might be a case of sour grapes.
@tomverhoeff Can't buy SnapChat. Fine then, I'll buy WhatsApp!
— Rudy Rodarte (@shadyrudy) February 19, 2014
The details of the deal also shed some light on how WhatsApp has managed to scale in a short time.
WhatsApp: 32 engineers. 11,562,500,000 messages per day per developer. 99.9% uptime. Learn Erlang.
— Adam Howard (@skattyadz) February 19, 2014
Truth be told, many of the comments about the deal were so expletive-filled that we can't run them on FierceDeveloper, but there were almost as many developers who were ready to cheer on their peers at WhatsApp.
Wow, huge congrats to WhatsApp. "Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $16 billion" | The Verge http://t.co/KPXoY9aRGZ
— Jon Chui (@jonchui) February 20, 2014
Congrats to WhatsApp! Also, some irony: "Jan's childhood made him appreciate communication that was not bugged" - http://t.co/0mKXafvIXL
— Robert Nyman (@robertnyman) February 20, 2014