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Safaricom
is the biggest Company in Kenya by both market capitalization and profit. Its
half year or quarterly data show a firm that is buoyed by turnover in various
investments that keep on ameliorating each day. This is however at the behest
of consumers who complain but since Safaricom is the best option and a silent
monopoly, they find themselves stuck with the mobile phone operator.
Sometimes
back, Safaricom used to offer unlimited SMS. This product was a gem to young
Kenyans especially those in relationships. Kenyans have queer habits, and
perhaps sending SMS the tardy media they could use to reach the apple of their
eyes.
When
the offer of unlimited SMS was modified in such a way that the it was no longer
limited but restricted, many a user complained bitterly for being denied their
right. Some social media uses even went to the extent of penning expletives to
on the Social media pages of the Communication-Tech giant by East African
Standards.
That
got me thinking, why the offended subscribers couldn't resort to
WhatsApp. It was free and very convenient as a medium. But on second
thoughts, I visited the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Page to find out
the number of people who had smart phones and phones that could support the
application. It was a like a tad in comparison to the subscribers in the
country.
I
decided to do brief unchequered survey in order to determine the number of
people on my mobile phone list who had the app installed. It was a paltry 100.
That was about three years ago and the figures have since changed.
WhatsApp
has been acquired by Facebook mogul, Mark Zuckerberg, and the number of people
actively using the application has risen from 400 million to more than 600
million monthly users. Statistics never lie, I bet that is the premise on which
Zucks decided to invest a whopping 20 billion (This is Kenya’s budget for the
current fiscal year) on an application.
WhatsApp
recently introduced the dreaded blue two ticks to indicate that a person had
already read your message. This particularly applies to those individuals who
have updated their application since most of those who have not, it clearly shows
that one may have read the message in the event two grey ticks pop up on the
recipient’s profile.
More
specifically, whenever you send a text now, a single tick mark will appear by
it to indicate your message was sent. If you see two ticks, it means your
message was delivered, and two blue ticks means your massage has been read on a
recipient chat profile.
Read
Receipts
WhatsApp
has finally introduced the annoying blue two ticks are also called Read
Receipts. It was a surprising covert feature that was quietly introduced into
the app.
According
to Techtimes, ‘The feature was introduced into the app without any updates to
the app itself, meaning that there were no included privacy settings that would
disable the read receipts feature upon its launch.’
Users
can now get rid of the blue tick marks in the Android version of
WhatsApp. While users will be able to disable the read receipts feature of the
app, it will also disable the same feature for the user, meaning the user will
also not be able to see if the people that the user has sent a message to have
read it. Disable Read Receipts
Here’s How to Bypass Whatsapp “Message Read” Confirmation
1. When you receive a whatsapp message
while you’re online or on your lock screen, don’t open it at first, let it get
received with two grey tick marks
2. Switch off all your mobile internet
and Wi-Fi
3. Open whatsapp and read the conversation
4. Close the conversation, come back home
and turn your Wi-Fi again.
WhatsApp
Tricks and Tips
There
are currently many features that most people have ignored or don’t know exist
that can aid in greatly securing your app especially from nosy family member, friends
and sweet hearts who are sometimes very hard to deal with.
One
such application is WhatsApp Lock for Android fanatics, while BlackBerry
users may want to check out Lock for WhatsApp.
For
Statistics geeks like me, there is an app that will definitely interest you. WhatStat provides information for
metrics such as your top friends, friends’ and groups’ most active times of the
day as well as message distribution for both one-on-one and group chats.
There
are many other features that are on the app that many by pass since most people
are usually afraid of testing the waters or finding out such apps as they are
content with what they are entitled to as users.
Future
of WhatsApp
Some
times I just wish WhatsApp could have rivaled Viber, recently bought by
Japanese online retailer-Rakuten, and allowed voice
calls which tend to be cheaper while using internet. That way, they can
aid in ensuring call rates are billed in the interest of the subscriber as most
operators will obliged to reduce the price of the calls per minute.
Again
it would be prudent if the system had a way of suspending dormant accounts in
order for a person not to send message that may be received but end up not
being read.
In
either way there is still competition in the way messages are being
sent and received. Viber is growing its tentacles though at a very slow
rate while other application platforms are gaining numbers especially in Asia
like WeChat.
