I'm starting a new thread devoted to the subject of using WhatsApp in contests and task sharing. Please share your thoughts on pros and cons, successes and failures, contests that used it well and not well, etc. A sampling (not all comments) and some copying and pasting from previous threads:


2019 Region 5 South Contest Cordele
---We are still trying to find a way to effectively communicate with competitors via mobile devices. A trial use of an application called What’s App may be a solution. After 3 days we have about half of the pilots using the service. It is free and relatively easy to use without having to ask my grand kids to help. We distribute tasks, messages, grid sheets, and social activity reminders. I woke up this morning to a question via the app of whether a rest day was in consideration for the day. A quick scan out the window revealed a beautiful Cordele morning. Remembering the advice from a relatively famous CD, Charlie Spratt, I responded “If it’s not raining, we rig and grid!”


2019 Jun/Jul Comments
---why not stick to the standards, SMS text messages, email, and a web page (a real web site, please not Facebook). Put downloadable documents (task sheets, weather forecasts, grid sheets, etc) on the web site. If they are suitable stand-alone files (PDF, JPG, PNG) they can be downloaded into the mobile devices for later off-line use.
---At grid time the task sheets were just being printed. With What’s App help, the task got to half the pilots about 10 minutes early.
---Regarding mass communication..here st Club Nationals we required all competitors to get on a calling post group. This is the program Walt has been using for distributing his weather briefings. All they have to do is send a text and confirm on a web link, then they are in the group. Then Walt and I can send group texts and/or emails to the entire contest. It has been really nice.
---They used "WhatsApp" at 15m Nats in Bermuda high this year. It had the advantage of using WiFi when Cell coverage was not available and could download pics docs ect.


2019 August Region 10 Soaring Club of Houston (SCOH)
We used WhatsApp at the Region 10 contest at the Soaring Club of Houston this past week to communicate contest info, reminders, task information and weather charts. The feedback has been positive so far with one exception: No chit chat. Ask participants to start their own private sub-chats for topics that don't affect the whole group. A few people turn off notifications because there is too much chit chat. This defeats the purpose of timely communication of the important information.

2019 Aug Comments
--- "with one exception" I might represent that. They ran a great Contest with Whatsapp. It seemed to work like a very quick E-mail reflector. Jamie provided great user support which mitigated the effort of installing the extra app for a few of us old fossils. It saved the effort of having to setup a reflector for the contest. My objection was that it seemed an extra app and potentially gave up the phone's contact list and i-cloud account access to Facebook. With a bit of effort it can be made to work without the contact list and i-cloud access, which made it fine. If I was interested in international messaging, I might consider it as a goto app. That seems it primary market niche these days.
---I'm not sure that 1.5 billion active users is consistent with WhatsApp having a "niche market". :-) But I do understand that in the US context it is not as common.

Handout that we used at our recent SCOH contest...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KQn...ew?usp=sharing


Jamie Shore
Soaring Club of Houston (SCOH)