[Raphael]

It's appealing to some to have messaging that doesn't funnel into a major data harvester. Facebook just acquired WhatsApp.

[tabel]

Whisper systems is owned by Twitter. I'm not sure how it's privacy record compares to that of Facebook.

[ThatGeoGuy]

In this case TextSecure has end-to-end encryption, and supposedly even hides metadata when using the push service (which is hosted on Google Push Framework). Feel free to check the source yourself, or take Moxie's word on it, but I think their "track record" is a bit cleaner overall, regardless of the acquisition of WhisperSystems by Twitter.

[foobarqux]

I'm pretty sure ownership reverted back to Moxie when he left Twitter.