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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

#261

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

luhn wrote: post #229
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a PM? I am getting insight into how google works because this sounds like a bunch of idiotic internal wars between acronym teams instead of focusing on making actual useful products.

Project manager. Pretty standard role in a software team. The person who determines what the end result should look like.

> The person who determines what the end result should look like.

Not necessarily. In many companies 'project manager' is just the techie name of what used to be called a 'secretary'.

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

#262

Post by davidwihl »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #258
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a PM? I am getting insight into how google works because this sounds like a bunch of idiotic internal wars between acronym teams instead of focusing on making actual useful products.

> focusing on making actual useful products A 'product' is something you sell to clients. Google's only product is advertising, and they don't need to focus on making better advertising because they are a monopoly. Everything else Google does is just a smokescreen for investors and a creeping fear that they won't be able to exist in a post-monopoly world.

Google also sells hardware (phones, Nest), Cloud services, gSuite...Ads represent 80-85% of Google revenue but that share is decreasing over time.

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

#263

Post by tehlike »

bane wrote: post #142
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…

I honestly have no idea what this means for fi. We were made to move over to Hangouts so we could sms from Gmail or something and now it seems to be going away?

Bummer, isn't it? That was my favorite feature to be honest.

I think there's a lack of connection between Fi and google's other chat products (or even just hangouts and fi) in terms of roadmaps and so on. Fi graduated, now hangouts going away seems a bit... reverse.

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

#264

Post by arwineap »

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…

Project fi actually DEPENDS on hangouts.

At some point in the last year, I wanted to jump into the "new chat ecosystem" and so I uninstalled hangouts to break bad habits. The entire phone becomes unable to connect to any network.

I love hangouts, and I wish RCS could just roll into it; but how did project fi end up so integrated?

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

#265

Post by pas »

notatoad wrote: post #181
tehlike wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"iMessage doesn't have single click to video, but it's also automatic." I don't think i got what you are saying... What do you mean automatic?

you message somebody, and they get the message. you don't have to think about what app you're using or what app they're using.

And if you are somewhere where SMS is not free, you might get a hefty bill.

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

#266

Post by derefr »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #258
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a PM? I am getting insight into how google works because this sounds like a bunch of idiotic internal wars between acronym teams instead of focusing on making actual useful products.

> focusing on making actual useful products A 'product' is something you sell to clients. Google's only product is advertising, and they don't need to focus on making better advertising because they are a monopoly. Everything else Google does is just a smokescreen for investors and a creeping fear that they won't be able to exist in a post-monopoly world.

Aren’t most Google services there to capture eyeballs for the advertisers to service? That’s Google Search (sponsored results), YouTube, and—in some sense—Chrome.

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

#267

Post by ovi256 »

Eridrus wrote: post #116
tehlike wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been testing the market since gchat. Doesnt mean it is working out.

It seems like Duo is working out. It has more than 500m installs, and isn't installed by default, so it's numbers aren't padded the same way Hangouts' are. Allo, despite being shut down got to about the same size as Signal.

Just uninstalled Duo from a new Android phone.

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

#268

Post by beagle3 »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #258
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a PM? I am getting insight into how google works because this sounds like a bunch of idiotic internal wars between acronym teams instead of focusing on making actual useful products.

> focusing on making actual useful products A 'product' is something you sell to clients. Google's only product is advertising, and they don't need to focus on making better advertising because they are a monopoly. Everything else Google does is just a smokescreen for investors and a creeping fear that they won't be able to exist in a post-monopoly world.

> Google's only product is advertising,

Google's main product is user attention, which they sell to advertisers in the form of advertising.

Right now, they farm this attention mostly through web search, but hone it through data they collect with other venues, such as e.g. location and other data collected from Android handsets, the vast tentacles of Google Analytics, Google DNS, G-Suite (GMail, G Docs, G Drive, ...) etc.

AFAIK, G-Suite for business is actually making money (a round-off error compared to advertising, but still, a profitable business), and the various cloud storage and compute offering are actually making money that is not a round-off error (though still dwarfed by advertising).

Also, they DO need to make better advertising (and farm better attention), because they are in many ways a "natural monopoly" - they're the monopoly because they are the best in many ways, mostly not because of network effects or anti-competitive behaviour (which they have practiced at times, especially with YouTube, but not nearly to the extent practiced by any other player of this size).

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

#269

Post by JoshuaJB »

brendanmc6 wrote: post #141
prepend wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked around the problem you describe by getting a google voice number and using that at the front end for my real numbers. My GV# is the face for whatsapp, telegram, whatever asks for my number. Also helps that I can send and receive sms over data or WiFi anywhere in the world. Doesn’t work with some sms gateways that don’t y’all GV, but the best international I know. Each country gets a new sim with a local numb…

I tried this a few years ago, it only worked for American customers. But it did save me some money making calls. Last I checked they basically abandoned their mobile app for a near decade...

They revived the app sometime last year and it's back in a usable state now.
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