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The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

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Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#91

Post by jknz »

FAQ: how start a video call using Google products?

Answer: Go to Gmail and send an email to the other party "can you Skype now?".

Literally. I had to schedule a video call recently by email. There is simply no formulation to schedule a video call using the name of one of google's products.

"Can you Hangout tomorrow?", "Can you Duo tomorrow", "Can you chat with Allo tomorrow?".

Nothing would work without confusing the other party with some probability. "Can you Skype tomorrow" always works, with everyone, no confusion.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#92

Post by lern_too_spel »

kyrra wrote: post #53
tehlike wrote: post #8

The text of the blog post is very confusing at best. I consistently got the feeling we have no idea how to do messaging, and we are throwing many things to see which one sticks. In other words, the blog post felt like it was a post about telling how we have no idea what we are doing using some thousand words. Messages app is very primitive. I like hangouts way more. I can hop from text message to video chat with fami…

(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…

Allo is an awful product that should never have been greenlit. It was a huge step back on Google's core mission "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessibleand useful." Not only could you not search your chat history from other devices, but you couldn't even use it from other devices at launch, and even when that was fixed, it was clunky.

Much better would have been to attach phone numbers to Hangouts, similar to how iMessage ties phone numbers to Apple IDs.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#93

Post by bubblethink »

I think the main reason people use hangouts at all is because everyone has gmail open all the time, or at least everyone has a gmail account. It's just laziness for the most part. Not that chat is that hard a problem or that hangouts is so good. If you have to go to newshinymessenger.google.com at any point, the advantage will die.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#94

Post by sorenjan »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #74
mrkstu wrote: post #65

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.

Wouldn't a federated solution be better though? After all email and SMS are decentralized, albeit somewhat archaic.

If email and SMS was invented today, they wouldn't be open and decentralized. Everything is locked and centralized nowadays, since everything is tied to accounts at companies wanting to make money of of you. It's the current state of the Internet, a world wide open network with siloed incompatible services.

I'm actually contemplating ICQ, it's still around and looks no worse than any other service. Matrix might be a better solution though, it's federated and open. https://matrix.org/blog/home/

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#95

Post by Eridrus »

briandear wrote: post #82
Eridrus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn’t count all of the iOS people that also use Signal. I use Signal and Apple Messages and didn’t even know Allo existed. I have a perhaps irrational fear of using messaging from Google or Facebook because they have lost my trust. Why would anyone invest in a Google messaging system when Google is prone to kill it off randomly?

Why do people ever switch chat apps? Besides shutdowns, it's because the new app does something the old one doesn't. Signal's pitch was easy encrypted messaging, but now there are apps that fill that slot, even Facebook Messenger has e2e encrypted chat, so there's not a lot of reason for Google to invest there.

Google Duo has succeeded as an app known for making video calls, which is as much a marketing/positioning achievement as it is a technical one.

There are lots of people declaring they will use a Google product in this thread, but of course no one is going to use a nonexistent product that people imagine as a clone of what already exists. Unless Google finds an "in", they're not going to get anywhere, even with whatever perfect app HN imagines.

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#96

Post by brendanmc6 »

yaacov wrote: post #89
brendanmc6 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

XKCD has a comic for just this situation: https://xkcd.com/927/

Hahaha I had that in my copy clipboard while typing the post :)

For real though, has any sort of movement or organization tried to alleviate these problems without financial motivation?

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#97

Post by ndespres »

jknz wrote: post #91

FAQ: how start a video call using Google products? Answer: Go to Gmail and send an email to the other party "can you Skype now?". Literally. I had to schedule a video call recently by email. There is simply no formulation to schedule a video call using the name of one of google's products. "Can you Hangout tomorrow?", "Can you Duo tomorrow", "Can you chat with Allo tomorrow?". Nothing would work without confusing the…

To which many would reply, "Yes, I can Skype with you. I am at work, so I'll be using my Skype for Business program which recently replaced Lync. My Skype will talk to yours, right? Oh it says here that Skype for Business (which used to be Lync (which used to be Office Communicator)), is now Teams, so uhh can you just call me on my phone instead. Thanks

Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts

#98

Post by Eridrus »

tehlike wrote: post #8

The text of the blog post is very confusing at best. I consistently got the feeling we have no idea how to do messaging, and we are throwing many things to see which one sticks. In other words, the blog post felt like it was a post about telling how we have no idea what we are doing using some thousand words. Messages app is very primitive. I like hangouts way more. I can hop from text message to video chat with fami…

What you see as throwing shit at the wall, looks like testing market hypothesis to me.

Google isn't going to win the messaging space by building a kitchen sink messaging app that is compatible with everything, so they need to look for opportunities in the market that they can capitalize on.

Particularly since Google has regulators breathing down their neck, and carriers unwilling to allow an iMessage equivalent on Android.

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