RIP Google Hangouts, the last and best chance for Google to compete with iMessage

Today, November 1, 2022, Google Hangouts scheduled to die. The mobile app individually kicks people out of the service Since Julybut the last remnants of Hangouts, web application, It will be closed today. Hangouts was – for a while – Google’s best, most ambitious and popular messaging effort, but 5 billion downloads Later, Google goes ahead. Hangout relatives, google chatBy now, all of your messages and contacts should have been imported automatically, but the new service is a faint shadow of Hangouts’ original plan.

Hangouts closing is the latest chapter in Mess This is the Google Message History. Google Talk launched 17 years ago, and Google still lacks a competitive messaging platform. Part of the reason we are in Google’s 10 millionth messaging app is that there is no consistent, stable home for messages within Google. The 2022 Message Collection is a great example. You have the Google Workspace doing Google Chat – that’s the Google team making a Slack competitor – and then there’s Google Messages – a kind of carrier-centric competitor to Apple’s iMessage service – which apparently originated from the Android team. Is the team that makes Android more or less important than the team that makes Gmail and the rest of the Google apps? Both have understandable reasons for chasing messages, but splitting Google’s user base across two incompatible products makes it difficult for any project to gain any traction. Besides these two big projects, there’s also still Google Voice, and a bunch of messaging services siled in apps like Google Photos and Google Pay.

Once upon a time, Google tried to fix this. Messaging was supposed to have a real home in Google, and that home was supposed to be Google+. In 2011, Google CEO Larry Page decided that social media was the future and founded the Google+ project across the company. The G+ boss was named “Senior Vice President” making him one of the eight people who reported directly to Page, making Google+ one of Google’s mainstays. This division was supposed to take full ownership of messaging, and the messaging project – Google + Hangouts – was launched two years later.

Hangouts, dubbed “Project Babel”, has been given the task – to get this –unite google message wallet Google had four messaging apps at the time, namely Google+ Messenger, Google Talk, Android SMS app, and Google Voice. Hangouts Launched in 2013By the end of the year Integrated SMS. By 2014, the app was fully functional, and Hangouts, SMS, and Google Voice messages popped up all in one app, all available from your phone or anywhere on the internet. with the release of Android 4.4 In 2013 there I was There is no standalone Android SMS app. Hangouts was the only default SMS option.

Google built its own version of iMessage, and it was a great service. All your communications were available from one messaging app in one easy-to-use interface. Google also has tangible advantages over iMessage, thanks to broad cross-platform compatibility. Hangouts was running on Android, iOS, the web, and within Gmail. This means that the service natively works on phones, watches, cars, tablets, web browsers, and even Google Glass at some point. Google will probably have a good standing in messaging today if it keeps updating and investing in Hangouts.

The Hangout House was already falling apart in 2014, though. Amid complaints that Google+ was a “ghost town,” the knives went out of service. Senior Vice President of Google+ and the driving force behind the project, Vic Gundotra, leave googleAnd on the same day, Reports are out That Google+ resources will be drastically reduced, and the mandatory integration of G+ at the Google level is over. Hangouts was stuck in a dying department, while some projects like Google+ photos It managed to move to a stable landing site, but Hangouts didn’t, and by 2015 you’ll regularly see complaints from customers that the project is underfunded.

The other “problem” with Hangouts is that it has been a blow to the carriers. Combining SMS and Super Messaging in one app was something the carriers didn’t like. They wanted something focused on SMS and SMS only, so that users wouldn’t be tempted to not use the carrier’s product. Google surrendered and introduced standalone Google Messages in Next Android version. With Google’s lack of regulation and stability, Hangouts’ reign as Google’s best integrated messaging service lasted for about a year. Hangouts continued to be trucked in as a zombie-abandoned product that was still better than a slew of new messaging services that Google would launch next, and today, it’s finally being phased out.