Facebook in talks to buy Whatsapp: Report

Whatsapp, the most popular online messenger for smartphones, may soon become yet another high-profile acquisition by Facebook, the biggest social network in the world. 

According to a report in technology blog TechCrunch, Whatsapp has already had talks with the social networking giant over an acquisition. The report said the likely terms of the deal as well as the acquisition price are not yet known. 

Facebook is currently facing problems on the mobile front as it has been unable to make use of its mobile platform. Facebook Messenger, a full fledged app for mobile devices, is not very popular among users, who continue to use Whatsapp and other mobile instant messengers. Off late, Facebook has also effected a much closer integration with popular internet telephony and messaging service Skype which is now owned by Microsoft, also part owner of Facebook.

Whatsapp, on the other hand, boasts of over 100 million daily users and delivers over a billion messages per day. The app works on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Symbian and Nokia S40 platforms and is used by people on over 750 networks across the world. 

The two services are quite different when it comes to business models. While Facebook is a free service and depends on advertisements, Whatsapp is free for a limited period on some platforms after which one has to pay to use it. On iOS, it is a paid service download. 

Facebook has often been criticised due to its "weak business model" and the inability to solve the mobile puzzle, as it grapples with serving advertisements to smartphone and tablet users. 

Facebook recently acquired the purchase of photo-sharing mobile app Instagram and announced it will combine user data from the two services to 'improve them'. Widely considered as means to serve more specific advertisements, that too on two different platforms, Facebook's move was criticised by privacy advocates who said it will invade users' privacy.