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Comment by br_smartass | Hacker News Reader

Brasilians are social-network junkies... Whatsapp was 'the messaging app' around the time where just about everybody got a smartphone so it just caught on, and there are groups for everything(and there's a lot of porn) and a lot of stuff goes viral through it(I've received Lula's lawyer wiretapped call through groups, for example) and then businesses started using it too, putting their "zaps" on billboards and etc. Before Whatsapp it was Facebook, Orkut, MSN..

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How do businesses manage to communicate with clients through their zaps when there isn't an official API nor a CRM oriented Whatsapp client. Also, aren't they breaking the SLA? Just curious...

Well, it would be simple/small businessess mostly, and mostly taking the place of phone calling, for example asking for information, ordering something, "signing up" to receive offers/the daily menu... And that would be just a guy with a list and a phone forwarding and repplying messages and etc. Radio shows also use it to communicate with listeners(although it's kinda ridiculous that then they have to warn all the time not to text while driving)... So.. Yeah, mostly about communication, not about process.

Mostly small business literally typing on their phones. Really bizarre.

I guess if this happens on a market where Whatsapp serves 10% of its entire user base, FB sees an opportunity to make back the billions it paid for it by offering a paid API to businesses.

There is something called web.whatsapp.com, if you don't know. Also, there are custom programs that will automatically answer whatsapp messages, like dealing with pizza orders, for instance, without any human intervention.

Yes, I know, use it everyday. Most small business in Brazil don't. And definitively no automated software. Also, all automated software for WhatsApp must rely on terrible hacks on the interface, as there's no supported API and WA is really aggressive against third-party clients.

It's funny to watch it, actually.

A company gives you their card information and there are a few things on it: the website URL, maybe an email, the address and a phone number, with the WhatsApp icon on the side!

When there are two numbers, they put the WhatsApp icon in one of them. They literally put another company's logo in their own contact info, because of how WhatsApp is so widespread!

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