(Photo: WhatsApp)

WhatsApp ads are coming soon.

After years of free use, many details are starting to appear on how Facebook will monetize WhatsApp, the popular mobile messaging app purchased for $ 19 billion in 2014.

According to India WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels of The Economic Times revealed that the company was going to start placing ads in the "Status" feature of the app.

"We will place the ads in" Status ".This will be the primary monetization mode for the company, as well as an opportunity for businesses to reach WhatsApp users," Daniels told the Indian press. , according to the report.

"Status" is the version of Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram of WhatsApp, consisting of quick messages and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat already allows ads to play between its stories, while Instagram allows companies to sponsor stories with these articles containing a line of text stating that they are part of a "paid partnership" with the sponsor.

Facebook revealed in January that WhatsApp had 1.5 billion monthly users. The service was free for everyone since 2016, when it dropped annual user fees of $ 1 for users after the first year of using the service.

Daniels did not specify when the ads might appear. A Facebook comment request was not immediately returned.

Facebook's decision to monetize WhatsApp was apparently one of the reasons why one of the company's co-founders, Brian Acton, left Facebook in 2017. In an interview with Forbes in September, Acton explained how he opposed the addition of announcements to the courier service that he had created: Something that, he says, did not stick with Facebook's superiors, including Mark Zuckerberg.

Acton says that on leaving, he left 850 million dollars on the table.

Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal

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