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Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

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Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#121

Post by simonh »

jmfayard wrote: post #3
nitin_flanker wrote: post #2

Why is Google launching multiple apps with similar functionalities? They already had Hangouts, they recently launched a group sharing app "Spaces". And now a new video calling app "Duo". They also have an app "Allo" which is another chatting platform. I am not complaining or anything, I am just curious about what are they planning to do with their old apps? i.e. Hangouts?

Google’s product strategy: Make two of everything For Google, its entire product lineup is just a big series of A/B experiments. http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/10/googles-product-stra...

I'll just wait until other users have figured out which ones are useful and which are a waste of time, let Google kill the ones that fail and iterate on the ones that don't until either everyone else adopts the same strategy as me or Google figures out what the heck they're doing. I'll set an alarm to remind myself to check back in 5 years.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#122

Post by kyriakos »

donpark wrote: post #57
delta1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> build an algorithm > adjust eye position yes, those are the hard parts

[Recent ML work on Gaze Manipulation]( http://www.creativeai.net/posts/6fokKr6xuytqsnT9F/deepwarp-p... ) [Online interactive demo]( http://sites.skoltech.ru/compvision/projects/deepwarp/ )

is it just me or the examples are just creepy ?

anyway I think its a minor issue. I am more worried about if I am dressed / groomed appropriately for the video call rather than if I am having constant eye contact.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#125

Post by mrdan »

natrius wrote: post #67
roryisok wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't they just put a camera behind the screen? Been waiting for this for over a decade

Now that people are coming up with ways to put people's real facial expressions in VR, most video calls are probably going to be replaced with avatars generated from your face that use your facial expressions captured by the front-facing camera. https://vimeo.com/156034648

Or as in Ghost in the Shell. Hard to tell since it's a cartoon, but their video calls always seemed like they were supposed to be looking at a representation of the other person: https://youtu.be/bv3Xyt-0V6s?t=4m30s

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#126

Post by jsmthrowaway »

Nullabillity wrote: post #43
dingo_bat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. For varying values of "just fine". For me, hangouts is probably the worst performing app on mobile, desktop and tablet. It's so bad that even Skype shames it. And FaceTime...well let's not even compare.

At least it doesn't only run on Apple devices, like the complete joke that is FaceTime.

[Here lies a substantive question that was posed to a content-free comment. Edit lasts longer than delete, so you now get to read its depressingly gray tombstone. Let's reflect together on this.]

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#127

Post by SlashmanX »

gst wrote: post #91
wutbrodo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I think the US is definitely an outlier there; Out of the couple dozen countries I've visited recently outside of the US, Whatsapp seems like hands-down the most popular messaging app (whereas in the US, almost no one I know uses it unless they're in frequent contact with a non-trivial number of foreigners).

A major difference is that in the US text messages and MMS are usually free, so there's not a lot of pressure to move to a different communication medium. In lots of other countries you pay several cents for each individual text message and MMS cost several tens of cents. And this is for domestic messages. With international messages (which you often use because you're country is likely to be much smaller than the US…

SMS' can be free in a lot of European countries, the main difference is that MMS didn't really take off in Europe as much as it did in the US so they usually cost more. Also since people weren't that attached to MMS, it was easy to 'replace'

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#129

Post by allendoerfer »

sidcool wrote: post #27
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This limits and subtracts from Hangouts for no real benefit. Hangouts works on phones, tablets and laptops. It does voice, video and text. Fragmenting these features across apps and devices seems to be a major step backwards...but apparently two apps is simpler than one?

This strategy seems to have born out of Facebook's success with breaking up the app into specialized features (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp etc.)

The only break up here was Messenger, and even there they did not just continue the feature but gradually phased it out to make sure people are actually following. Messenger still uses the same network behind and did not create a separate one.

Instagram and Whatsapp are just examples of how not to kill a successful product. Turns out it's quite simple: You change nothing.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#130

Post by Fuxy »

emsy wrote: post #111
euyyn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you rather Duo not exist and keep not having an app that you can use with both of your parents?

The problem is that I want such an app to exist (and thrive), but that history taught me not to get my hopes up when it comes to Google products. Chances are they will fail to gain a significant userbase and/or the product (better yet project) will be discontinued.

I don't see a better app at the moment since Skype got bought by Microsoft and all the encryption got nerfed.

Although I get where you're coming from. It would also be nice if all products discontinued by google would just get open sourced.

They are basically saying it's useless to them so why not let somebody else give a try.

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