Meta-owned WhatsApp starts in-app ads for 1st time
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After years of providing free services without any bells attached, WhatsApp is now going to start showing ads on the popular chat app. To be clear, users will only see ads on the Status screen — the app’s take on Instagram’s Stories.
Meta rolls out WhatsApp ads and Channel subscriptions as part of a strategy to make money from the app.
For now, the ads will only appear on WhatsApp's Updates tab, where users can update their status and access channels or groups targeting specific interests they may want to follow. In its announcement of the ads, parent company Meta claimed that placing ads under Updates means that the ads won’t “interrupt personal chats.”
As per Meta's Newsroom, advertisements will appear only in the "Updates" tab — a separate tab at the bottom of the app, which showcases both "Channels" and "Status" features. Users can subscribe to friends and other public channels, and post statuses of their own, akin to Instagram 's subscription and "Stories" features.
Curtis said that when she first signed on as the spokesperson for Activia, “My agents and lawyers and many friends questioned why I would do such a thing.”
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