Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 186 posts

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#61

Post by dudus »

0x0EB0DA10 wrote: post #6
Scaevolus wrote: post #4

They forgot about Inbox! After following this nonsense product timeline for 16 years from the original Google Talk days, my last chat thread still using Hangouts moved to Facebook Messenger. chat.google.com is just aggressively worse in far too many ways, and will surely be killed circa 2024.

Isn't Inbox just an email client? > chat.google.com is just aggressively worse in far too many ways, and will surely be killed circa 2024. I doubt it. Google Chat is Google's enterprise product offering like Microsoft's skype.

This comment is funny because Skype was killed in favour of Teams.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#62

Post by MattJ100 »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #13

I 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…

Relevant documentation on their philosophy: https://developers.google.com/talk/open_communications

Although Talk was one of their longest-running messaging tools, they ultimately pulled back their openness approach, blaming... pretty much everyone else (for not following suit): https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-talk-to-...

Edited to add: I should note that their public reasoning for ending an era of open communication standards support differs from some internal accounts I have heard. Google Hangouts was launched amid a lot of internal turmoil related to Google+ and their desire to reclaim social.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#63

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

xyzzyz wrote: post #20
sb057 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So neglect with extra steps.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#64

Post by pineapple128 »

sundvor wrote: post #45

I've used Google Talk ie Hangouts since the beginning with my friends/family. It's been a service that's worked reasonably well, for ages - and we can't have that, can we? So now, on Android, they're trying to force us over to "Chat in Gmail". No, just no. I don't want to open my email to then hit a chat tab to message my brother. They must be separate apps; it's messy when they try to cram everything into one app, t…

Signal is just as easy to use as WhatsApp for example. You register with your phone number and you can call/text anyone on your contacts who has installed Signal.

It even has video calls and recently added screensharing to them.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#65

Post by sundvor »

pineapple128 wrote: post #64
sundvor wrote: post #45

I've used Google Talk ie Hangouts since the beginning with my friends/family. It's been a service that's worked reasonably well, for ages - and we can't have that, can we? So now, on Android, they're trying to force us over to "Chat in Gmail". No, just no. I don't want to open my email to then hit a chat tab to message my brother. They must be separate apps; it's messy when they try to cram everything into one app, t…

Signal is just as easy to use as WhatsApp for example. You register with your phone number and you can call/text anyone on your contacts who has installed Signal. It even has video calls and recently added screensharing to them.

Thanks, that might be a great candidate then - appreciated.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#66

Post by oblio »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #51

A comment I don't see here yet is that this is to some extent a consequence of Google's business model. The assumption seems to be that a company should be wary about doing what they're doing, because they'll lose business. But Google's not directly selling these services, in most cases. I assume they're happy with the way they do things, which is try a bunch of stuff in a slightly chaotic but fairly nimble way, be h…

> Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs

All those were launched more than a decade ago, though.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#67

Post by [deleted] »

gman83 wrote: post #27
barsonme wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I heard that this hasn't been true for several years, but everyone keeps repeating it.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#68

Post by di4na »

oblio wrote: post #66
thenoblesunfish wrote: post #51

A comment I don't see here yet is that this is to some extent a consequence of Google's business model. The assumption seems to be that a company should be wary about doing what they're doing, because they'll lose business. But Google's not directly selling these services, in most cases. I assume they're happy with the way they do things, which is try a bunch of stuff in a slightly chaotic but fairly nimble way, be h…

> Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs All those were launched more than a decade ago, though.

And not really iterated on... Maps got slightly better but Gmail and GDoc were uh... not really refactored into better stuff

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#69

Post by techrat »

COGlory wrote: post #7

I tried so hard to integrate into the Google ecosystem. I had a Gmail account and Google Talk to start. Eventually an Android phone, on Project Fi, with Hangouts and SMS (so I could send SMS over the internet). I upgraded from Gmail to Inbox. Then when they ditched that for Allo and Duo I tried to switch to those. Then I lost SMS on my computer because it got removed from Hangouts. Then I tried to switch to Google vo…

Early adopter curse.

I remember buying the first DVD Recorder on the market and being pissed later on that I couldn't burn the (much better) DVD+R type discs in my drive.

I never switched from my carrier to Project Fi. Never switched to Hangouts. Never switched to Inbox. Never switched to Allo and Duo.

So as far as I'm concerned... Gmail and Google Voice have pretty much always been working as intended for me.

It's kind of what you have to expect when you consider that we are Google's beta testers. Gmail was in beta for YEARS. If something new shows up, I may wait a year and see if it's still around, then maybe consider that I start using it... if I have a use for it.

In the end, Gmail is worth it to me over having to run my own email server. Never again. Ugh.

Re: Google’s Messaging Mess: A Timeline

#70

Post by CodeGlitch »

gman83 wrote: post #30

It hasn't been all that confusing to me. I was on Google Talk, then I switched to Hangouts, which I have been using with my family until about a month ago, we've since transitioned to the new Google Chat and it's been fine. I like that it works on every device just by logging in. I also use Signal if there's more confidential stuff I need to send. I haven't used SMS in years and I really hope they don't try to bake t…

> Nobody I know in Europe uses SMS, it's just for receiving codes and stuff.

I still use SMS in the UK if I'm in an area with poor data connection. SMS will work over 2G even.

Post reply on HN