The author seems to have forgotten about YouTube Messages:
https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/12446824/heads-up-...
Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
11–20 of 186 posts
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#12Google as an inovative company with amazing things to try died almost a decade ago. Today its more or less IBM. Would you try IBMs new chat app?
I'd trust it to stick around more than a few years, that's for sure.
Looool. Zing. I’d absolutely trust pretty much any company more than google on that front.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#13I feel they missed out massively in not centralising the communications standards.
Not sure if this was realistic or the new products were trying to create whole new tech that stopped this but when they saw different directions some core standards for interoperability would have helped. So if you had Hangouts and I had Allo we could still chat as least in the most standard was of voice/video/message. Proliferation would have mattered less and the product teams could have focused on UX/ new features/brand separately to their hearts content.
It would also help people try platforms cause I I could swap to the latest and greatest but still chat to my contacts Id be more willing to try vs trying to drag people across to a new platform.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#14Does anyone have any insight into Google's internal politics or processes that lead to this mess, and why is chat so much more fragmented at Google than other services?
From what I understand, promotions at Google are largely granted at the completion of leading some kind of initiative; for example, launching a new product. The problem being that once the project lead has been promoted, they are no longer in charge of that project, and no one really takes over for it, leading to neglect and eventually being shut down entirely.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#15Does anyone have any insight into Google's internal politics or processes that lead to this mess, and why is chat so much more fragmented at Google than other services?
It's not messy in Google standard. Politics are normal, for an unsuccessful in Google's standard.
It's just not meaningful for Google. It's like Jeff Bezos is so rich that he picked a very awkward candidate to replace his wife, but having a female companion to Jeff is no longer crucial for his success (imagine what would happen if Jeff married his current girl friend...).
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#16Does anyone have any insight into Google's internal politics or processes that lead to this mess, and why is chat so much more fragmented at Google than other services?
I’m not sure how true it is, but the common refrain I keep seeing on HN and elsewhere is that Google’s promotion track incentivizes new products over maintaining and expanding current products.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#17I feel they missed out massively in not centralising the communications standards. Not sure if this was realistic or the new products were trying to create whole new tech that stopped this but when they saw different directions some core standards for interoperability would have helped. So if you had Hangouts and I had Allo we could still chat as least in the most standard was of voice/video/message. Proliferation wo…
Phone lines have this solved. You don't need to be on ATT to call someone on ATT. I don't get what's the deal with the messaging platforms. I hope some regulation forces interoperability.
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#18They left out google groups. I’m sorry, groups team, the local baseball teams and HOAs see you.
Nope. Groups.io works a treat
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#19Google as an inovative company with amazing things to try died almost a decade ago. Today its more or less IBM. Would you try IBMs new chat app?
I would say google is closer to the new Oracle than new ibm
Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline
#20Does anyone have any insight into Google's internal politics or processes that lead to this mess, and why is chat so much more fragmented at Google than other services?
From what I understand, promotions at Google are largely granted at the completion of leading some kind of initiative; for example, launching a new product. The problem being that once the project lead has been promoted, they are no longer in charge of that project, and no one really takes over for it, leading to neglect and eventually being shut down entirely.
> The problem being that once the project lead has been promoted, they are no longer in charge of that project
That’s not how it works, promotion does not move you to a different position. Project leads in charge stay in charge after promotion. What often happens though is that promoted people leverage their new, higher level to move to or start more desirable projects.