Improving WhatsApp as a product

When it comes to instant communication, who isn't aware of WhatsApp? Being such a popular product here is my take on what can be done to further enhance WhatsApp.

Problem solved by WhatsApp

- It solves the problem of instant communication. I have been using Whatsapp since 2014.

Positives

1. Its helps in instant messaging, communicating with a group of people and broadcasting a message to your contacts (choice of audience is given to users) with voice, video and text.

2. It helps in sharing content (documents/images/contacts) that is really helpful

Areas of improvement needed.

Problem of compressed images: Amongst the most commonly used feature of WhatsApp is the image share/file share option. Its not uncommon in a group of friends, the one with Apple is asked to click photos and share them in their Whatsapp 'group'. Generally, when WhatsApp is used to share images, the quality of the image reduces as WhatsApp compresses the image. While this is advantageous for low bandwidth, its not helpful for all situations.

Workaround: If a person wants to ensure image quality is maintained while sharing images to a group of people, he has to share it as a 'document' than as an image. The problem with this approach is these documents ultimately land in another folder of the receiver's phone . not only that, these documents can generally be opened 'one by one' only while the photos can be seen continuously.

Solution: Give an option to the user to forward high quality image itself as such, similar to the option that WhatsApp gives while sharing a video on a status(without compressing). Not all might want it and coming to the scale of WhatsApp this might even clog their messaging platform, but while this is already implemented for docs, this is a feature that can be given as a option to some users and basis findings can be decided to apply to more.

2. Problem: WhatsApp allows us to keep statuses and set up a custom audience with whom we want to share a status. Why is this a problem you ask me ? Let me tell you.

What we have now : We have 3 options:

1. Share with my contacts

2. Share with my contacts(Except)

3. Only share with

While this helps in most cases, it does not help in all cases. There could be scenarios where we want to :

1. Share a status containing family photos only with family members.

2. Share a status on college party only with our college friends

3. Sharing some photos of you and your girlfriend only with your gang/gf.

I know what you are saying now, ' Isn't this possible already with these 3 options? '

Yes, but everytime you might have to tweak with the contacts you want to share/not share with.

A different approach : Allow different sets of groups to be created for whom statuses can be shared on adhoc basis. (OR) Even allow statuses to be shared to members of WhatsApp groups you are part of. ( This is similar to ‘Close Friends’ feature of Instagram.)

Eg: Family group, Friends group, College group, Colleagues group

The difference with this approach is once you have multiple groups, you can easily share/not share stuff only with people whom you want to see that information.

3. Problem : Video status can only be 30 seconds long. Many times, I have myself clipped videos to trim it down

Solution : Need to increase the size of the video status shared to a much higher limit of atleast 2 mins. Yes, this increases the CDN costs upwards at scaleas video is heavier than photos. But right now, the users are moving to other platforms (Instagram/Telegram) where the size is not a problem. If we want them to take advantage of WhatSapp, this is something that can be considered.

Open for constructive criticisms, suggestions or any feedback. Please drop in a comment on what you think.

#surajmurali #product_enthusiast #WhatsApp