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Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

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Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#111

Post by solarkraft »

lokedhs wrote: post #105
8ytecoder wrote: post #45

Google feels like a company that's run by a bunch of engineers/product managers instead of a product leader with a cohesive vision. Anyone with an iPhone would understand what iMessages is and what FaceTime is. What is what and what you can do with each. Now explain it to me Google - what's your vision? (Or is it "target end state" in engineering speak?) As customers we want (at most) one chat application and one vid…

You mean just like how the messaging "strategy" that gave us Allo also created Duo? Because adding just one new messaging application was not enough. They had to split messaging into two. Is Duo also being shut down?

Nope, they're fine with its success.

I've never heard of anyone using it after its launch, felt it was very buggy when it launched and the name implying it only supports two users limits it severely ... but they seem to be happy with it.

... or they forgot it exists.

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#112

Post by atombender »

gundmc wrote: post #22

Hacker News: LOL! Google has so many messaging apps, their product strategy sucks! Google: They're right, we need to focus our messaging strategy. Let's consolidate our platforms. Hacker News: OMG! Google deprecates everything! Classic Google

It's ironic, but I also don't see a huge contradiction.

Launching terrible services is bad. Shutting down services that people have genuinely come to rely on is also bad. But shutting down services that were meritless to begin with -- not a problem, but at the same a good opportunity to criticize Google for their aimless, lukewarm product strategy. Or complete lack of product strategy. Hard to tell.

The real fix is to have a cohesive vision and try to only create products that have merit, high quality and serious commitment behind it. A failure now and then is one thing -- every large company has a little graveyard of failed products -- but to keep making the same mistake repeatedly is something else entirely.

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#113

Post by hossbeast »

just_myles wrote: post #78
8ytecoder wrote: post #45

Google feels like a company that's run by a bunch of engineers/product managers instead of a product leader with a cohesive vision. Anyone with an iPhone would understand what iMessages is and what FaceTime is. What is what and what you can do with each. Now explain it to me Google - what's your vision? (Or is it "target end state" in engineering speak?) As customers we want (at most) one chat application and one vid…

Totally in agreement. Same can be said about their hardware lines. From nexus phones to chromebooks. Terrible. I was a hangouts guy. That's what has me worried about their cloud services. Are they going to suddenly just add and remove things without any real notice?

I have some Hangouts that I use daily over the last 5 years. I am going to be very sad when they shut it down

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#114

Post by brownbat »

gundmc wrote: post #22

Hacker News: LOL! Google has so many messaging apps, their product strategy sucks! Google: They're right, we need to focus our messaging strategy. Let's consolidate our platforms. Hacker News: OMG! Google deprecates everything! Classic Google

These both signal that Google often wastes its resources through poor planning.

If you have developers working on competing products, you're wasting developer time.

If you inevitably shut down products, you're wasting developer time.

They are the same phenomenon.

The coherent recommendation isn't for more or fewer products, it's for some kind of product strategy.

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#115

Post by godelski »

I think Allo is really cool. A lot of the features it had were pretty incredible.

BUT besides this I had a lot of problems.

1) It is not privacy oriented. (I still have _enough_ trust to Google that if they explicitly state something as privacy oriented I would believe them. But that's not their business model)

2) No one used it. I have more friends that use Signal than Allo. Even though I liked all the features, those aren't enough to push people over. I feel the only way it would have succeeded is if they completely replaced messenger with allo (I thought that was the plan).

But I hope Signal implements some of these features. Really what was useful is inline google searching. Possibly inline DDG searching?

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#116

Post by lbebber »

solarkraft wrote: post #107
Phrodo_00 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that true in the broad messaging space (speaking of martekshare), mostly because apple limits itself to the portion of the market that happens to own apple products. Facebook is, though.

Meh, everyone I know uses Telegram. I haven't used Facebook messages in years because the feature is apparently not on the mobile website and I'm not willing to install an app that requires suspiciously many permissions.

Here’s a lil trick: if you have to, you can access your Facebook messages on mbasic.facebook.com.

(And on to the point, Facebook has also, of course, WhatsApp, which is massive)

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#117

Post by typon »

8ytecoder wrote: post #45

Google feels like a company that's run by a bunch of engineers/product managers instead of a product leader with a cohesive vision. Anyone with an iPhone would understand what iMessages is and what FaceTime is. What is what and what you can do with each. Now explain it to me Google - what's your vision? (Or is it "target end state" in engineering speak?) As customers we want (at most) one chat application and one vid…

It's because making a chat app isn't actually that hard... The product has been commotodized. Maps on the other hand..incredibly complicated and we are still far from a "perfect" maps experience.

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#118

Post by gomox »

SwellJoe wrote: post #99
gomox wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thing you are describing used to be Hangouts, but is now Meet.

Nobody told me. Or Google, apparently. https://photos.app.goo.gl/E9qk9KJC73VoEj5y6

When you go to the actual conference in the calendar event, do you still see a Hangouts URL and UI?

Maybe we are on different sides of an A/B test.

Re: Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon

#120

Post by gervase »

killjoywashere wrote: post #68
drewg123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an Xoogler's perspective, the launches are all about the promos. Eg, just think about all those engineers who would not have gotten a promotion because then they would not have had a product launch in their promo packet.

Very interesting - other large orgs also accept waste in the name of talent development, but I'm not sure I've seen it at this scale. Do scientific advances in papers also count as product launches, or do you have to put a thing in the world?

Previously, they made a hard push to make sure that their science was "applied" science, but that's softened a bit in their pitches lately [0].

The current iteration has a 4-axis evaluation metric [1], where the value of a given project is measured by the area of the polygon.

So, you can make theoretical advances that don't go into products, but it's better for you if they do.

[0]: Disclaimer: I've been recruited by Google's research arm, but haven't worked there.

[1]: https://ai.google/research/philosophy/

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