WhatsApp can be more than just a messaging alterative. So far they've added small features incrementally and it would seem have been successful with this approach.

This features genuinely adds to the user experience and its nice to have a way of sharing statuses with most if not all of my contact list as opposed to a select few that use snap chat.

My only gripe is the privacy concerns, I can't help but feel Facebook will combine all data one day and most worryingly in retrospect.