Facebook lifts the lid on how it's making money from WhatsApp
CNN
Since Facebook paid a whopping $19 billion to buy WhatsApp in 2014, investors have wondered how it will cash in on the acquisition, especially after the company walked back a controversial plan to sell ads on the app.
On Wednesday, the company finally provided some details on how it's using WhatsApp to drive ad sales on its other platforms, Facebook (FB) and Instagram. Businesses that use WhatsApp to communicate with customers and conduct transactions — a group considered key to the app's future — have since 2017 been able to purchase ads on Facebook and Instagram that include a button allowing users to switch to WhatsApp and initiate a conversation with that business. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday there are now 1 million businesses using those "click to WhatsApp" ads.Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.