WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with over 2 billion users worldwide as of 2022. It allows people to easily communicate with friends, family and contacts through text, voice notes, video calls, document sharing and more. WhatsApp also has extensive community features that enable groups of users to connect, collaborate and communicate more effectively.
The Early History of WhatsApp (2009-2014)
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, both former employees of Yahoo. The app launched in November 2009 exclusively for iPhone. The name “WhatsApp” is a play on the phrase “What’s up?” The goal was to create an app that would display user statuses next to names on the contact list. This would show who was available to chat and avoid the need to send communication back and forth to see if contacts were available.
The app proved hugely popular, as it was a much smoother alternative to regular SMS messaging. WhatsApp gained quick traction, amassing 250,000 active users by early 2010. This led Acton and Koum to switch focus and make WhatsApp a fully-fledged messaging app. Over the next few years, WhatsApp expanded support to other smartphones including Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Symbian systems.
By early 2011, WhatsApp hit 1 million active users. The user base then rapidly expanded over the following years, aided by the app’s low cost, data-based model that appealed to users internationally. WhatsApp gained popularity in Europe, Asia and Africa, before taking off in North America. By 2013 WhatsApp had surpassed global leaders like Blackberry Messenger, with 200 million active users worldwide.
Key Moments
- 2009 – WhatsApp founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum
- 2009 – WhatsApp app launches exclusively for iPhone
- 2010 – WhatsApp user base reaches 250,000
- 2011 – WhatsApp exceeds 1 million active users
- 2013 – WhatsApp hits 200 million active users
Facebook Acquisition and Beyond (2014-Present)
In February 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp in a landmark $19 billion deal. While costly, the acquisition allowed Facebook to dominate mobile messaging and increase user engagement through WhatsApp’s already established large global user base.
At the time of acquisition, WhatsApp had 450 million active users worldwide. Under Facebook’s ownership, the user base continued to rapidly expand by hundreds of millions each year. WhatsApp crossed 1 billion users in 2016, and 2 billion users in 2022.
Facebook advanced WhatsApp’s features and functionality following the acquisition. Group chat size was increased to allow up to 256 users, document sharing was enhanced, and voice calls were added in 2015. By 2018, WhatsApp supported video calling as well. Throughout this period, WhatsApp remained focused on fast, simple messaging and calling for both individual and group chats.
In 2020, WhatsApp launched some more advanced capabilities. WhatsApp Pay was unveiled in India to enable payments between users. WhatsApp Business also expanded internationally to provide companies with solutions to communicate with customers. These developments opened up potential new avenues of growth while retaining WhatsApp’s core messaging strengths.
Key Moments
- 2014 – Facebook acquires WhatsApp for $19 billion
- 2016 – WhatsApp reaches 1 billion monthly active users
- 2018 – Video calling added to WhatsApp
- 2020 – WhatsApp Pay launches in India
- 2022 – WhatsApp hits 2 billion users globally
The Growth of WhatsApp’s Community Features
While WhatsApp has always featured group messaging capability, over time the platform has developed more extensive community-building and group management features to bring larger sets of people together.
In the early days, WhatsApp supported groups of just 30 users. This group size limit was initially increased to 100 users in 2014, as WhatsApp’s first major enhancement to community functionality following the Facebook acquisition.
By 2016, the group limit had expanded to 256 users – a major upgrade that opened the door for large communities and group collaboration. Location sharing was also introduced this year, allowing groups to easily coordinate meetups and events.
Further improvements were made in 2018 with the addition of group descriptions, catch-up features for missed messages, and group administrator controls. These tools enabled simpler administration of large groups with more customization.
WhatsApp made groups a core focus in 2020 and beyond, developing a range of new capabilities:
- In 2020, group video calls for up to 8 participants were launched.
- Also in 2020, WhatsApp introduced disappearing messages which can automatically delete messages after 7 days.
- In 2021, joinable calls enabled users to join a call even after it started through a link.
- WhatsApp Communities were previewed in 2022, offering sub-groups and larger group sizes up to 1024 users.
Together these features have transformed WhatsApp group chats into robust communities for any kind of group interaction, whether its families, friends, school groups, cultural associations, workplaces or interest groups.
Timeline of WhatsApp Community Feature Growth
| Year | Feature |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Group limit increased to 100 users |
| 2016 | Group limit increased to 256 users, location sharing added |
| 2018 | Group descriptions, catch-up, admin controls added |
| 2020 | Group video calls launched, disappearing messages added |
| 2021 | Joinable group calls introduced |
| 2022 | WhatsApp Communities and 1024 user group sizes previewed |
WhatsApp Communities
In April 2022, WhatsApp unveiled its most significant evolution yet of community features, with an early preview of WhatsApp Communities. This new structure aims to enable significantly larger and better organized group communication than ever before on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp Communities will allow groups of up to 1024 users, providing a space for much larger communities. But the key advantage is that Communities can have sub-groups within them, enabling streams of smaller group conversations under one umbrella.
This means organizations like workplaces, schools and associations can have one large overarching Community as the central place for communication. Then they can have targeted sub-groups on specific topics, teams or classes within the overall Community. Admin controls are expanded as well for easier management.
The Communities structure has launched in preview form in 2022 for testing and feedback. The launch timing for general public access to full WhatsApp Communities capability has not been confirmed, but a 2023 launch is likely based on typical WhatsApp development cycles.
This long-awaited evolution of WhatsApp’s community features will enable the platform to compete more effectively with enterprise collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. WhatsApp’s global user base offers significant advantages, but further enhancements to group messaging were needed. The Communities update aims squarely at filling that gap.
Key Features of WhatsApp Communities
- Groups of up to 1024 users
- Sub-groups for focused conversations
- Improved admin controls and moderation
- Announcement messages across communities
- In-chat polls
- 32 person video calling
The launch of WhatsApp Communities represents the next generation of the app’s already substantial communication capabilities. With these more advanced community features, WhatsApp is poised to become an even more versatile platform for both business and personal use cases.
Conclusion
WhatsApp has come a long way since its beginnings over a decade ago as a smartphone-focused messaging alternative to SMS. It has grown into a global communication giant, enabling rich messaging as well as voice and video calls for users across 180 countries worldwide.
A key part of WhatsApp’s expansion has been its ever-improving community features, allowing groups small and large to leverage the platform. WhatsApp group chats now facilitate group communication for millions of families, workplaces, schools, cultural groups and interest communities around the world.
Upcoming launches like WhatsApp Communities will take the app’s group messaging capabilities to bold new levels. WhatsApp has cemented itself as a leader not just in one-on-one communication, but as a robust foundation for community building and group collaboration.