RIP Google Hangouts, Google’s last and best chance to compete with iMessage

Today, November 1, 2022, Google Hangouts Death is planned. The mobile app logs people out of the service individually From JulyBut the last remnants of hangouts, internet application, It is closed today. Hangouts was – for a while – Google’s best, most ambitious and most popular messaging project, but 5 billion downloads Later, Google moved on. hangout relatives, Google-chatUntil now, all your messages and contacts should have been imported automatically, but the new service is a pale shadow of Hangouts’ original plans.

Closing Hangouts is the new chapter chaos This is Google Messages history. Google Talk launched 17 years ago, and Google still lacks a competitive messaging platform. One of the reasons we’re at Google’s 10 millionth messaging app is because Google has a solid and stable home for Messages. 2022 Message Collection is a great example. You have Google Workspace, which makes Google Chat — which makes Google Teams a Slack competitor — and then there’s Google Messages — a carrier-focused competitor to Apple’s iMessage service — apparently built by the Android team. Is the team that makes Android less important than the team that makes Gmail and the rest of Google’s apps? Both have understandable reasons for chasing messages, but splitting Google’s user base between two incompatible products makes it difficult for either project to gain traction. In addition to these two major projects, there are several messaging services isolated to apps like Google Voice and Google Photos and Google Pay.

Google once tried to fix this. Messaging should have a real home on Google, and that home should be Google+ In 2011, Google CEO Larry Page decided that social media was the future and established the company-wide Google+ project. The G+ boss was named “senior vice president,” one of eight people reporting directly to Page, making Google+ one of Google’s mainstays. This department was to handle all messaging, and the messaging project – Google + Hangouts – was launched two years later.

Hangouts, known as Project Babel, was tasked with – achieving this –united Google Message Wallet Google had four messaging apps at the time namely Google+ Messenger, Google Talk, Android SMS app and Google Voice. meeting place Launched in 2013until the end of the year Integrated SMS. By 2014 the app was fully functional and Hangouts, SMS and Google Voice messages appeared in one app, available on your phone or anywhere on the web. With its release Android 4.4 2013 there i was There is no standalone Android SMS app. Hangouts was the only default texting option.

Google has created its own version of iMessage and it’s a great service. All their communications were available through a messaging app in an easy-to-use interface. Google also has a real advantage over iMessage for wider cross-platform compatibility. Hangouts runs on Android, iOS, web, and Gmail This means the service will work natively on phones, watches, cars, tablets, web browsers, and eventually Google Glass. Google will likely have a stronger reputation in messaging today if it continues to update and invest in Hangouts.

However, the hangout house fell into disrepair again in 2014 Knives was taken out of service amid accusations that Google+ was a “ghost town”. Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Google+ and the driving force behind the project, Quit GoogleAnd on the same day The report is out That Google+ resources will be drastically reduced and G+’s mandatory Google-level integration is over Like some projects when Hangouts was stuck in a dead section Google+ Photos It managed to get to a stable landing pad, but Hangouts didn’t, and by 2015 you’d see regular complaints from customers that the project was underfunded.

The other “problem” with Hangouts is that it was a hit to the carrier Network operators didn’t like the combination of SMS and Super Messaging in one app. They wanted something that focused only on texting and texting so users wouldn’t be tempted to not use the carrier’s product. Google has given up and launched standalone Google Messages Next Android version. Due to Google’s lack of control and stability, Hangouts’ reign as Google’s top integrated messaging service lasted about a year. Hangouts continued to launch as a zombie-abandoned product that was still better than a whole host of new messaging services that Google launched later, and today it’s finally being retired.