Credit Markedium
The Mercedez F1 Team and WhatsApp have announced a new partnership. According to the agreement, WhatsApp will represent the Mercedes F1 Team as their official messaging partner.
“We’re joining the team! WhatsApp is the Official Messaging Partner of @MercedesAMGF1 for 2024 and beyond.”
The deal is WhatsApp’s first ever sports sponsorship partnership and will see the Mercedes team post exclusive content to WhatsApp, with an emphasis on WhatsApp Channels.
Due to its recent partnership with Mercedes F1, WhatsApp Channels, which debuted in July, will receive much-needed exposure.
As part of the agreement, WhatsApp branding will be shown at Mecedes F1 events. Additionally, it will support the promotion of WhatsApp usage in Western areas.
A couple of weeks ago, WhatsApp’s CEO, Will Cathcart, hinted that the messaging app may soon feature advertisements.
Although Cathcart did not provide a timeframe, he did mention that ads might appear throughout the app.
In an interview with Brazilian media, Cathcart said WhatsApp has no plans to show ads in the main inbox but did not rule out showing ads in other places within the app.
In September, WhatsApp denied stories making the rounds that it was planning to introduce ads.
The denial became necessary following a Financial Times report that Meta was planning to introduce ads to WhatsApp.
Reports of ads on WhatsApp just would not go away; these reports have continued to resurface despite strong denials by Meta.
This FT story is false. We aren’t doing this, Cathcart said via his X handle.
In other news, WhatsApp has introduced a new search feature for the Updates tab. The new search feature, which streamlines the process of looking for status updates and channels, is already available to some beta testers.
After installing the most recent WhatsApp beta for iOS 23.21.1.72 update, as shown in the screenshot, a search bar for the Updates tab has been added for some beta testers.
Given that it might be challenging to locate particular channels among an expanding list of followed updates, the search feature also enables users to search for their followed channels directly within the new search bar.
Users now have the option to collapse the section listing recommended channels if they have decided not to follow any channels.
