Facebook Acquires WhatsApp For The Total of $19 Billion

Facebook has finalized the deal to buy the popular messaging app WhatsApp for $16 Billion, according to the statement released by Facebook yesterday. The $16 Billion price tag consists of $4 Billion in cash and $12 Billion worth of shares in Facebook Inc. upfront to the founders of WhatsApp. The agreement also includes an additional $3 Billion of restricted stock over the course of next four years to the founders and employees of WhatsApp. WhatsApp has around 50 employees.

“WhatsApp’s extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide. We’re excited and honored to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world.” – Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO.

WhatsApp is a fast growing real-time mobile messaging app that allows users to send and receive messages over the Internet, avoiding the regular messaging charges. It has currently over 450 million active users with 100 million active users registered in the last four months and is on the path of reaching 1 billion users. Its business model involves charging $1 per year as a subscription fee, which is not charged for the first year.

“WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product”, Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and CEO, said in a blog post.

Source: distimo.com

Download Puzzle Game “Threes!” For iOS

The developers of three popular games Hundred, Puzzle Juice and Ridiculous Fishing, brings you another challenging puzzle game Threes! It is available to download for iOS 6.0 or later devices.

Threes! is a puzzle game that centers around the number three and is created by three developers; Asher Vollmer, Greg Wohlwend and Jimmy Hinson. The game has simple and minimalistic look, but its gameplay is quite challenging. In Threes! you are challenged come up with as many multiples of 3 as possible to score as high as possible.

The gameplay involves combining numbered block to form ever increasing multiples of 3. The concept is pretty simple and straight, but it becomes quite challenging because of some rules. In the game you are require to combine numbers to form a multiple of three, but not all numbers can be combined. The real challenging part is that only same numbers can be combined, like 3 and 3 can be combined to form 6 which then can only be combined with another 6 to form 36, and so on. Only number 1 and 2 are exempted from this rule, as 1 and 2 can be combined to form 3.

With each slide the number on the board increases and your goal is to keep forming multiples of three so the board does not get full. If the board gets full, it is game over for you.

Threes! is indeed a tiny game with big challenge.

Touch arcade gave 5 out 5 to Threes! Here is the full review of Threes!

Facebook Paper App Available For Download

The newest app by Facebook, Paper, has instantly become a hit in the iTunes App Store just after its official release. The app was released on February 3^rd, 2014 for iOS 7.0 (or later) devices and is available for US citizens only. It is available to download from iTunes App Store.

Facebook Paper is actually a news reader app, similar to Flipboard and Google Currents. It is a news curation app that shows content from your Facebook’s news feed, which may include stories, photos, and videos from your subscribed sources as well. Paper allows users to customize their experience by customizing the sections showing stories from their Facebook news feed, external sources, and other reliable publications.

With Facebook Paper, you can also catch up with the news and stories that you may have missed. Paper is also integrated with the Facebook functionality that allows users to compose and share content from the app and access their Facebook messages and notifications as well.

Check out Facebook Paper review by TechCrunch.