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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

#311

Post by Dayshine »

ehsankia wrote: post #90
sorenjan wrote: post #34

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…

> Where I live almost nobody uses SMS for person to person 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?

>No one uses SMS because it's primitive and limited compared to regular messengers.

No, noone uses it because it doesn't use data. I walk into a supermarket and lose signal so I can't SMS anymore. I can use the wifi to send messages even without signal.

Yes, I know there are SMS over Wifi apps, but they're proprietary and usually require signal to enable.

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

#312

Post by xte »

matwood wrote: post #305
xte wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the two with a chess timer aside. I have done that many time and see the result. Doing a thing at a time, so being interrupted, prove to be FAR more productive than doing many thing at a time. Of course if you interact with professional people, if you have to interact with brainless individuals that can't even express themselves in their language well... It's another story, but even in this case it's wasted time.

When you time a voice chat, are you also including the time to document what was said and share it with the team?

I consider ITIL, Kanban and all other managerial erotic bureaucracy harmful. If I need to document something said by voice I have only to push a button on my deskphone and an mp3 of the conversation with reasonably good audio quality will be created and sent to my mail when I end the call, also I use to have a small portable recorder with a good mic in my pocket, while it's not legally valid it I do not tell others that I'm recording it turn out really useful in few cases.

Fortunately I'm in EU (France) so I have still a bit of choice (less and less, unfortunately) to avoid certain bureaucratic companies too much common in modern English world (and I evidence modern because when UK was a real power and USA was a really strong economy they do NOT have such modern mania or at least it was far far far less developed).

What I simply measure is how much I can do with single tasking concentrated operation vs how much I can do and how bad the resulting quality is when I multitask. The result are simple: the more I try to be quick the more error and time I waste, the more I go calm the best result I achieve.

And while I do not have real consistent data I can see result of a certain kind of work paradigm everyday in any aspect of our society.

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

#313

Post by based2 »

CivBase wrote: post #210

So... this? | Text | Video Business | Chat | Meet Personal | Messages | Duo I guess that makes a lot more sense... I just wish I knew why four separate apps are needed in the first place. Why can't text and audio/video be supported in the same app? Skype, Hangouts, HipChat (RIP) and many other messaging programs have been doing it for ages. It's simple and intuitive. The Hangouts Chat/Meet split is particularly confu…

'Chat' supports 'Rich Communications Services' (RCS), the protocol that will replace SMS.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-rcs-messaging/

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/8dneie/do_you_believ...

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

#314

Post by chiefalchemist »

jordanthoms wrote: post #164

This is just an utter mess. Google keeps ignoring and trying to kill Hangouts (which should still be called GChat, that was an incredibly stupid rebrand), and building new products instead of investing in the one which actually has some potential. Google could have been a major player in messaging if they had just stuck with GChat/Google talk from the early Gmail days and kept investing in it. It was great on the ear…

I think there's another way look at this. Per "Zero to One" Google is a very powerful monopoly. It wants to protect that position, as well as make it less noticeable.

All these "side projects" create the illusion that Google is not a monopoly. More importantly, new Product X, whatever it is, helps to attract new top talent. Top Talent is going to want to fix old things, they want to build new.

While this might sound a bit extreme, even if it's not actually true (in tandem) both of these "incentives" are real. Google does need to mask its dominance. And it does need to attract top talent (if only to keep soneone else from acquiring it).

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

#315

Post by eythian »

ehsankia wrote: post #90
sorenjan wrote: post #34

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…

> Where I live almost nobody uses SMS for person to person 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?

It doesn't matter why, the fact of the matter is that no one uses SMS in these places, which is also true wherever I've lived.

People use Whatsapp primarily, or facebook messenger, or (in my bubble anyway, not so widespread) Telegram. These products have the network effect already established, and no one is likely to go back to crappy SMS, even if it is dressed up.

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

#316

Post by matwood »

tempestn wrote: post #275
tehlike wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's lack of vision. There are not many in the company who strives for the best product, or have the vision to make a change. As the company got larger, people started caring for more about career and less about great products. People who solve for some director's problem got promoted over the ones who truly deserved it. Unfortunately, some of the smartest people i know now also looks down on google. This one kid tha…

It really seems like the company must be lacking top-down leadership. It almost seems cliché to bring up Steve Jobs here, but the contrast is striking. One could argue he took things too far the other way: There was one iPhone. It was the perfect size. Hell, there was one mouse button. It was the correct number of buttons. For everyone. But still, it's laughable to imagine this kind of fractured insanity happening at…

People underestimate the importance of leadership all the time. Google is a company built around being the smartest person in the room, but where are the leaders? A good leader is not necessarily the smartest (in a Google sense) person in the room. How does that person get put in a leadership position in a company like Google?

You mention Jobs. Was he smarter than Woz or a better engineer? No, but he was a much better leader. He inspired people to work, and relentlessly drove his vision. Obviously he didn't always make the right call, but I think we can say with confidence he would not have let this messaging mess drag on for close to 10 years now.

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

#317

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

sorenjan wrote: post #34

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…

Other articles have indicated that Google is going the RCS route because they don’t want to rock the boat with mobile carriers, who do not want to see a proprietary chat system like iMessage on their networks.

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

#318

Post by eythian »

grahn wrote: post #308
ehsankia wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where I live almost nobody uses SMS for person to person 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?

> No one uses SMS because it's primitive and limited compared to regular messengers. You also have to take into account that SMS is 5-10 times more expensive almost everywhere outside the US. Unless you have a flat-rate plan, a single 140 character messages is about 10 cents where I live. And even if you have a flat-rate plan for domestic messages, it's 1-2 USD (per message!) when sent to friends and family abroad. I…

It's also very unreliable if you're messaging abroad. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you're roaming and so is the other person, it becomes even trickier. At least data works and within the EU is pretty much free.

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

#319

Post by bajsejohannes »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #314
jordanthoms wrote: post #164

This is just an utter mess. Google keeps ignoring and trying to kill Hangouts (which should still be called GChat, that was an incredibly stupid rebrand), and building new products instead of investing in the one which actually has some potential. Google could have been a major player in messaging if they had just stuck with GChat/Google talk from the early Gmail days and kept investing in it. It was great on the ear…

I think there's another way look at this. Per "Zero to One" Google is a very powerful monopoly. It wants to protect that position, as well as make it less noticeable. All these "side projects" create the illusion that Google is not a monopoly. More importantly, new Product X, whatever it is, helps to attract new top talent. Top Talent is going to want to fix old things, they want to build new. While this might sound…

> More importantly, new Product X, whatever it is, helps to attract new top talent. Top Talent is going to want to fix old things, they want to build new.

Is that really true? I would personally chose to work on Facetime than Google's new messaging system, all else being equal.

Facetime is really solid and I'm sure I could learn a ton from the expertise there; as well as working on something new within that product.

In contrast, Google's messaging systems just seem like a mess. I would feel like it could be cancelled at any time, that we didn't have the best talent (because it's spread across the various systems) and honestly would be slightly embarrassed to talk about it ("yeah, I know, yet another message system from Google").

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

#320

Post by draw_down »

Groxx wrote: post #172
jordanthoms wrote: post #164

This is just an utter mess. Google keeps ignoring and trying to kill Hangouts (which should still be called GChat, that was an incredibly stupid rebrand), and building new products instead of investing in the one which actually has some potential. Google could have been a major player in messaging if they had just stuck with GChat/Google talk from the early Gmail days and kept investing in it. It was great on the ear…

I'm also one of those that was / is still sad about losing XMPP integration. Highly customizable alerts are borderline essential if you have a lot of threads going, but hangouts seems determined to prevent you from doing any of that.

Makes sense, unfortunately commercial products universally abandon those open protocols at some point.
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