Member Avatar for 奇_925

Has anyone developed the WhatsApp protocol?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rproffitt
Member Avatar for Dani

Sorry, I don’t have any experience developing for it. Are you stuck on a bug?

commented: Yeah,I want to develop a script that can mass texting in WhatsApp,but no underlying protocol technology. +0
Member Avatar for Dani

It looks like WhatsApp does not have a public API for your app to directly tap into.

There are paid solutions you can use such as Twilio that you can then integrate into an app that you build.

commented: Do you have a circle about WhatsApp protocol development? +0
Member Avatar for Dani

If you don’t want to use their paid API, then I wouldn’t say this is a matter of being illegal or not. I would say it’s just not possible.

Unfortunately, if an app does not expose their API to the public, for free, there’s most often just no way of circumventing it.

Member Avatar for Dani

Yeah,I want to develop a script that can mass texting in WhatsApp,but no underlying protocol technology

I think maybe you don't understand what an API is or how it works. An API is code that lets you tap into an application that you don't control. Can you explain in better detail what you're looking for?

Edited by Dani
Member Avatar for Dani

Mass texting with a messaging app? Sounds a lot like spam to me.

There are plenty of very legitimate uses for mass texting, mass messaging, etc. Many of those use cases use Twilio.

Whether it's emails, texts, calls, or any other medium, it's only considered spam if it's unsolicited such that the user did not sign up to receive messages from the service and/or to be added to their mailing or marketing list.

Member Avatar for pritaeas

There are plenty of very legitimate uses for mass texting, mass messaging, etc.

And many more that are not...

Member Avatar for Dani

It’s actually not very likely because all those services cost money, whether you are sending one message or one million, so it’s not very attractive to spammers casting a wide net since it’s so regulated. It costs money to send mass texts because the phone carriers demand a piece of the pie. Email is free which is why we get a hell of a lot more daily email spam than text msg spam. (And email is currently not taxed by ISPs). Isn’t that the basis of the whole net neutrality thing?

Either way, I digress. This thread never should have gone in the direction of accusing the OP. I assume the OP posted their question after arriving at DaniWeb after stumbling across this tutorial, but for anyone who comes across this thread looking for real answers, here it is: https://www.daniweb.com/programming/tutorials/536466/how-to-build-a-simple-whatsapp-bot-on-php

Edited by Dani
Member Avatar for Dani

So, to finish answering the OP’s question, there aren’t going to be any free alternatives to WhatsApp mass messaging services such as Twilio because every service has to pay WhatsApp each time because messaging isn’t free. So that fee is being passed onto the clients that are doing mass messaging for their businesses.

This is different than mass email services like Constant Contact which build the infrastructure as a SaaS and you are using their server resources but there is no underlying fee per email beyond that of server resources that the mass email services are being charged.

Sorry for the brevity. I’m typing on my phone.

Member Avatar for 奇_925

Thanks for all of the replies,I am very benefit.And I want to ask that does anyone have the circle about whatsapp?

Member Avatar for rproffitt

What if you didn't use or develop a protocol? What if you automated the keystrokes with say AutoHotKey or your own app? Now it looks like you typing on the keyboard. Whatsapp is here on my PC on Opera so yup, very easy to automate but thankfully not easy for script-kiddies.

Member Avatar for Dani

Rproffitt, I have no clue what you’re trying to say? Key logging? What on earth does that have to do with sending mass messages through a third party service?

Member Avatar for rproffitt

It's key pressing. I've used AutoHotKey for a very long time to automate work.
As to sending mass messages, we can automate keypresses to get a job done when there is no API.

On Apple you would use Automator for example.

AutoHotKey has a file that is plain text, ends with .AHK so a script could write the needed commands to the .AHK file, load that file and a timer in the AHK autofire the needed sequence.

It's a fairly easy system to learn too. No third party required.

Edited by rproffitt
Member Avatar for Dani

I think you're misunderstanding what the OP is asking for. Basically he's looking for a free (or, I suppose, lower cost) alternative to Twilio. The only thing that I can think of, unfortunately, is Chat API but that also doesn't come cheap, although it's more budget friendly than Twilio.

Edited by Dani
Member Avatar for rproffitt

I think the API approach was covered so I offer the free workaround so they are aware of how you get around such things.

My first real world use was decades ago in early PC days. The IT group would charge "connection time" so we programmed up a PC as a terminal and the program would login, press the keys for the human and get the data entered in about 10% or less time than a human. Big cost savings to our department. The IT group wanted to block such use but failed. We would just program up the app to deal with their changes. Weird days.

Edited by rproffitt
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