Meta announces that it will open the API for any company that wants to use its alternative. In addition, it will allow synchronizing messages on up to 10 mobile devices.
WhatsApp is updating itself to be more accessible to all companies in the world and has announced that it will open its API to those who wish to use it.
The announcement was made by Mark Zuckerberg at the first edition of Conversations, a conference that the company hopes to hold annually to communicate WhatsApp Business news .
“You may remember that in the early days of Facebook, we used to share everything on our wall. Then, over time, in our feed and in public for all our friends to see and react to. Today, most of us use our home pages to discover interesting content and stay up to date. But for deeper levels of interaction, messaging has become the center of our digital lives,” Zuckerberg said.
!The best business experiences reach people where they are. More than a billion users already connect with a business account through our messaging services every week. These users reach out to ask for help, to find products and services, or to buy anything from high-value items to everyday products. And today, I am pleased to announce that we are opening WhatsApp to any company of any size around the world with the WhatsApp Cloud API ”, he refers.
What does it mean to open the WhatsApp API to companies?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of functions offered by one company for use by others to connect their applications.
“In just a few minutes, any business or developer can easily access our service, build directly on top of WhatsApp to personalize their experience and speed up their response time to customers using our secure Meta – hosted WhatsApp Cloud API . This is an important step in helping more businesses connect with people and helping more people send messages to the businesses they want to support, whether small or large.”
According to WhatsApp, for businesses this new service will eliminate costly server fees and give them instant access to new features. And for people, this means they’ll be able to chat with more of their favorite businesses on WhatsApp.
However, WhatsApp will also allow businesses the ability to manage chats across up to 10 devices so they can better handle the influx of chats. But this will be under a premium cost model ; the free model will be four devices.
In addition, it will allow new customizable links to chat on WhatsApp to help companies attract customers through their online presence.