WhatsApp to come out with a web-based chat service?

WhatsApp is the most popular mobile instant messaging service today, free and available on all major mobile platforms such as Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Symbian. There are rumors that we would soon be seeing it on the web. According to rumors, a web version of WhatsApp has been developed by which WhatsApp messages could be sent through a computer and it is called as “WhatsApp web”.

Two different versions of WhatsApp messenger app are available – One through its own website and the other through Google Play Store. When folks at AndroidWorld compared the website version of December 9 (2.11.471) and Google Play Store version (2.11.432), they found several strings in the app mentioning “web_session” and “whatsapp_web” as can be seen below:

They also found evidence for this in images and layout files in the installation package. Below is a screenshot showing web session in a computer. It shows the list of computers that are logged in to WhatsApp Web and has a button below from where you can log out of the WhatsApp Web from all computers.

This seems to be a testing phase and very little info is available at present. Guys at AndroidWorld also found that in version dated December 11, there were no references to WhatsApp Web. Maybe the WhatsApp people want to maintain secrecy about it and so they have removed it.

It may be kept in mind that developers keep experimenting on various ideas and all of them don’t necessarily bear fruit. So this WhatsApp web may or may not see the light of the day.

WhatsApp, which had over 600 million active users as of October 2014, has been acquired by Facebook this year for about $22 billion, a $3 billion increase over the original agreed amount of $19 billion.

WhatsApp to come out with a web-based chat service?