81–90 of 402 posts
Genuine question here, as I've read both the post and all the comments here and I still can't figure this out: Does this blog post say google's consumer text messaging strategy is now "send an email?" I read the post as saying Messages is for Android consumer text messaging, Duo for cross-platform consumer video, and Hangouts for enterprise text and video. That doesn't seem to leave anything for friends doing text ch…
What gets me about the entire Google messaging ecosystem is how they manage to be so bad. My messaging system of choice is Signal, and it looks to be about three or four full time people that work on that. It manages to handle SMS, Grop Chat, Video Chat, and End to End encrypted chat for me. I imagine there are more Vice Presidents assigned to Allo then there are employees at Signal, and signal manages to out compete…
Signal and Allo actually have a similar number of installs, they're both in the 10-50m installs bucket in the Play store. I use Signal, but it's fine at best, but it's not really going to break out of it's niche.
Why would anyone invest in a Google messaging system when Google is prone to kill it off randomly?
I have lived back and forth between Europe and the USA over the last few years. Communication is always the most difficult part of the move. It's a reminder of how far off our tech is from the true ideal. In Europe, everyone has WhatsApp. For a while, this was great! One app, one "to reply" list. A taste of what messaging could be. I quickly found myself frustrated. WhatsApp relies on phone numbers, which muddies up…
I have lived back and forth between Europe and the USA over the last few years. Communication is always the most difficult part of the move. It's a reminder of how far off our tech is from the true ideal. In Europe, everyone has WhatsApp. For a while, this was great! One app, one "to reply" list. A taste of what messaging could be. I quickly found myself frustrated. WhatsApp relies on phone numbers, which muddies up…
This is the brilliance of iMessage where it gets critical mass- fallback to SMS but pushing the iMessage identity tied to an account that follows you to new phones/devices. I think that iMessage network effect is a big reason for the steady market share growth of iPhone in the US- none of the competitive apps have cross-generational appeal, just iMessage.
As you can tell by the length of my last post, thinking about this situation has got me upset.
So upset, that right now I've decided to launch a non-profit, open collective organization called OOMA. Only One Messaging App.
OOMA will be comprised of the millions of people who are annoyed and upset at the result of tech companies competing for our communication. We are taking things into our own hands. We are agreeing to switch to ONE service, for ALL of our messaging needs. All of us, all over the world, all at once.
We are going to do 5 things, in order: 1. Choose a switch date. 2. Define a spec for the "perfect messaging app" (encryption, licensing, finance model, features, tech, etc.) 3. Invite companies to pitch their app, and/or secure funding to develop our own to spec. 4. Spread the word. 5. Make the switch.
I'm going to prepare a marketing web page and (ironically) a discord server right now. At the very worst it's a fun side project and way to express my anger.
EDIT: OOMA server is live. If you think an app is not the solution, come tell us why: https://discord.gg/CmdgUp
Does anyone think that now is Microsoft's best chance to revive Skype as a household name synonymous with chat and video calls? I doubt anyone would want to use any chat app from Google anymore, Facebook is getting really bad PR which could affect WhatsApp as well soon enough. Signal and Telegram are good alternatives but lack marketing muscle. Slack and Discord are mainly used for group chat in professional and gami…
skype feels too slow for casual messaging. WhatsApp is the best solution right now - both messaging and video/calls.
Genuine question here, as I've read both the post and all the comments here and I still can't figure this out: Does this blog post say google's consumer text messaging strategy is now "send an email?" I read the post as saying Messages is for Android consumer text messaging, Duo for cross-platform consumer video, and Hangouts for enterprise text and video. That doesn't seem to leave anything for friends doing text ch…
I think it's more "send an sms". I could be reading this post wrong though.
I guess that's better than telling people to fax 8 track tapes, but not by much
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Googler also, also unrelated product) I felt like Allo was actually a really great product. Comparing it's UX and features to other messaging apps out there, I felt like it was one of the most polished (iMessage or FB Messenger being similar). From a product strategy POV, it felt like a product targeting Asia (specifically India, as it launched with Indian themed sticker packs), at least at launch, but that changed…
> Hangouts is... something special. Would you, please, elaborate?
And this works even if your phone is off, lost, broken, or has no service. Hangouts also works on any device with an internet connection if you log in. You can text and call from your number on literally any device just by signing into hangouts. None of the multitude of other redundant Google messaging products does any of this. Even their official replacement "messages" only works if your phone is on and has service.
You don't even need a phone to call and text from a laptop through GMail from your phone number. That functionality will be lost.
I have lived back and forth between Europe and the USA over the last few years. Communication is always the most difficult part of the move. It's a reminder of how far off our tech is from the true ideal. In Europe, everyone has WhatsApp. For a while, this was great! One app, one "to reply" list. A taste of what messaging could be. I quickly found myself frustrated. WhatsApp relies on phone numbers, which muddies up…
What’s wrong with iOS Messages? I can text literally everyone I know. I don’t even know what it does under the hood.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the brilliance of iMessage where it gets critical mass- fallback to SMS but pushing the iMessage identity tied to an account that follows you to new phones/devices. I think that iMessage network effect is a big reason for the steady market share growth of iPhone in the US- none of the competitive apps have cross-generational appeal, just iMessage.
I agree with you, but a hardware specific messaging app is just stupid. As you can tell by the length of my last post, thinking about this situation has got me upset. So upset, that right now I've decided to launch a non-profit, open collective organization called OOMA. Only One Messaging App. OOMA will be comprised of the millions of people who are annoyed and upset at the result of tech companies competing for our…
I'm pretty sure this blog post was forced due to the recent articles about Hangouts and Allo on 9to5google.com [0], [1]. Thinking that Messages, which uses SMS and RCS were available, would have any impact on messaging is wishful thinking at best. Where I live almost nobody uses SMS for person to person conversations, it's mainly used for package notifications, 2FA codes, and so on. RCS isn't available as far as I kn…
Isn't that recursive thinking? No one uses SMS because it's primitive and limited compared to regular messengers.
> I wouldn't want to use a mobile only protocol
I'm curious, but could RCS be interchangeably used both through provider and through a host such as Google? Could Google not host their own RCS backend?