Private Mentions
Private Mentions addressed a core gap in Status: helping people connect around content relevant to close friends and family. I showed end-to-end ownership as one of five “can’t fail” initiatives, defining a privacy-first interaction model that enabled relevance, connection, and organic resharing without compromising WhatsApp’s trust norms.
Close two core gaps in Status: Audience and Content.
Audience: making it easier to share updates with the right people.
Content: making it easier to surface content that is relevant and engaging.
Design a private, consent-aware way to signal relevance in Status, so people could connect more easily with close friends while preserving WhatsApp’s low-pressure, non-performative social dynamics.
Goal
Introduce a pull-based relevance signal into Status, allowing people to be notified when content mattered to them. By combining privacy-first design, in-chat continuity, and resharing mechanics, the system strengthened bonds between close contacts while creating a durable new participation loop.
Private Mentions spanned multiple surfaces, including poster and viewer experiences, reshares, and an in-chat mentions component. I owned design across these surfaces, partnering closely with Privacy to ensure clarity and trust, and with Core Consumer to integrate mentions seamlessly into chat threads.
The Approach
Shipped experiences across Status and chat that made relevance legible, enabled lightweight resharing, and strengthened close connections without increasing social pressure. In the process, we uncovered mimicry as a key participation lever, with mentioned posts proving highly relevant and frequently reshared. This insight unlocked a new work stream focused on creative expression and mimicry.
Success:
~25% of mentioned statuses are reshared
Contributed +1M posts per day within 3 months of launch
Poster WAU increase of 425K ±157K
~40% of reshare posters were incremental