WhatsApp Is ‘Gradually’ Rolling Out Ads

WhatsApp says 1.5 billion people now use their messaging service every day. That’s out of a global population of just over 8 billion, if you ask the United Nations. That’s absolutely wild… and totally plausible.

Just under one-fifth of humanity logs on to WhatsApp every day. That’s an awful lot of people who are about to be bombarded with advertisements on a daily basis. Welcome to the future, baby.

where you’ll see ’em, and where you won’t

In classic corp-speak, WhatsApp announced the rollout of advertisements in a June 16 blog post by kicking off the news thusly: “Today we’re introducing some new features for our Updates tab…”

Ah, yes. Features. How much I love it when I look up at the aggressively lit, flashing features of Times Square, or when I try to rush a bathroom trip during a feature break between plays on a televised football game.

There were three “features” announced on Monday, only one of which was ads, although I do think it’s funny they referred explicitly to these ads as features lower down in the blog post, too.

“You’ll be able to find a new business and easily start a conversation with them about a product or service they’re promoting in Status,” wrote WhatsApp in its blog post.

Ads won’t appear in your personal messages, groups, or calls, but they will show up in your status and channels. Channels are groups you can join, generally around a shared interest, such as a sports team or media outlet.

WhatsApp will determine which ads you see by taking into account your country, city, language, the channels you’re following, how you interact with the ads you see, and—if you add WhatsApp to Accounts Center—your ad preferences and information from your accounts spread across other Meta platforms.