I think this is the WhatsApp feature I miss the most. More than privacy, more than the fact that it is free, more than “multi-device” support, more than sharing images without compression… What I really miss is a share button when I’m viewing a website on the PC. Because yes, if you’re viewing a website on your phone it’s very easy (all the browsers I’ve tried — Safari, Chrome, Opera, Dolphin… — include it), but often you’re browsing on your laptop and you come across websites, photos, videos or articles that you feel like sharing with someone. And you want to share it via WhatsApp, because it is much more immediate than email, Facebook or Twitter.
You have options like this website (currently on standby) or something a little more complex like this other one, which involves installing an Android emulator for PC. In both cases they are neither automatic nor instant processes, unlike tweeting, giving a “+1” or pinning. I think this is an obvious area for improvement and the step WhatsApp is missing to become an even bigger success.
There have already beenthe first steps toward greater integration WhatsApp Web with initiatives like this one, where the image we choose is shown when sharing a link from our website on WhatsApp, but this is clearly not enough, at least for me. I think the app, with its gigantic user base (430 million worldwide, no less), could follow Instagram’s example and become a global app, not just one tied to the mobile phone.
It is possible that its creators are not interested for now in creating a web interface or, failing that, a desktop app (despite what they said a few months ago) and that they prefer to focus, as they always have, on messaging between users ("Our thing is messaging: pure, clear, direct“, "we are the successors to SMS" remember?). But every time I want to share a website with someone and cannot do it via WhatsApp, I cannot help thinking about it: how easy it would be for them to put a little button there and how much many users — ourselves included — would appreciate it. Besides, a side effect of this would be even greater differentiation from its competitors (read: the Spanish Spotbross, Line or Telegram, the latest to arrive)
In short, at least in the short term, if we want to share links, especially privately, we will have to keep doing it the “old-fashioned” way: by email, Facebook chat or private tweet. I wish they would take note…
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