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Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

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Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#91

Post by gst »

wutbrodo wrote: post #82
tonfa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is not specially an emerging market product, I think it is the most popular chat app in a bunch of European countries.

Yea I think the US is definitely an outlier there; Out of the couple dozen countries I've visited recently outside of the US, Whatsapp seems like hands-down the most popular messaging app (whereas in the US, almost no one I know uses it unless they're in frequent contact with a non-trivial number of foreigners).

A major difference is that in the US text messages and MMS are usually free, so there's not a lot of pressure to move to a different communication medium. In lots of other countries you pay several cents for each individual text message and MMS cost several tens of cents. And this is for domestic messages. With international messages (which you often use because you're country is likely to be much smaller than the US) the costs are often insane and can reach more than a dollar per message. Basically providers in those countries stopped competing with apps like Whatsapp. They still offer a texting service, but they're not trying to get someone to use it, because they already lost the battle.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#92

Post by aluhut »

I don't have a number on my Pad...there is not even a Sim in there. Why can't it be just their damn Google account?! I dont even want to give my phone number to them and when I'm in a foreign country i don't want them to easy Switch between WiFi and the super expensive Roaming just because I went in the wrong corner of the Hotel room...

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#93

Post by dredmorbius »

vincnetas wrote: post #17
sotojuan wrote: post #9

On the same week that they discontinued Hangouts on Air in favor of YouTube? Why is Google always making and closing stuff?

Some things end up in different box than they were in before when you cleaning up your house. Have you never moved your code from one package to another?

This is an exceptionally strong argument for having your internal and external representations separate. So that every fucking reorg or personnel shift doesn't require 3 billion people to update bookmarks and Web apps and password safes.

Some companies just can't get their branding straight. They launch a video product, then buy one, then try to keep them separate, then try to merge them, then kill one.

Or they launch any of a bazillion interactive chat apps, each worse than the first, and keep killing them off. Then wonder why people don't use them.

They have a secret sauce money machine and start fucking with it.

They create a fear-driven paranoia taillight chaser, set up really stupid rules about engagement, drive off their highly enthusiastic early-adopter crowd, try to cram it down everyone's throats, allow 2 billion random strangers on the Internet to set Calendar appointments (Scoble's blast at Slic Vic was classic), and mix a bazillion random Internet freaks with your personal email contacts.

They shove cameras into the world's face and the world bitchslaps them for it, rightly.

And that's the piddling stuff.

Then they create smoke alarms that cannot be turned off, thermostats that can't work without Internet, and buy, then sell, a war-making robot-terminator-dog company.

And they expect us to believe them that their Majick Cars will be bugproof, un-annoying, and non-lethal.

I think they'll find that when the time comes, the letter H will be well occupied by Hubris.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#94

Post by throwawaymsft »

emsy wrote: post #74
ende wrote: post #5

Have they announced when it will be discontinued?

A bit cynical but that was my initial thought as well. It's sad because FaceTime exists for so long and is so easy to use and I'd really like to have an app that I can use with both of my parents (one Android, one iOS). But I see Google failing with this already.

Reputations are often earned.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#95

Post by Alexss »

2bitencryption wrote: post #50
helloworld wrote: post #12

Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today. When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the person you're talking to. And for me, that makes video call…

To be honest, I never found this to be a huge problem. After hundreds of Skype calls with people, I just don't notice it anymore. Sure, to fix that problem would be nice. But I don't think the engineering required to put a camera behind a screen, or creepily adjusting people's pupils in realtime, are worth it to rectify what is hardly an issue. EDIT: also, it's a bit weird to write a critique like yours for the launc…

" also, it's a bit weird to write a critique like yours for the launch of a new platform"

I think this is a fair critique because the release announcement states the product should address the symptom that "nearly half of us never make video calls on mobile". If you believe the underlying problem is that lack of eye contact makes video calling low-value to many people this is not a viable solution.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#96

Post by dmoy »

michelb wrote: post #59
roryisok wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't they just put a camera behind the screen? Been waiting for this for over a decade

apple has a patent on something similar since 2006, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=... recently improved upon it: http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/08/apple_files_patent... Wonder why it never made it into a product.

Maybe they tried and current screen tech sucks for it?

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#98

Post by anilgulecha »

flamedoge wrote: post #38
option_greek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Can't get over the feeling of looking down at the person you are talking to. If you look at the camera, you can't look at the person :(

Just need 4 front facing cameras

No, just place the other person as close to the camera as possible. That'll give the illusion of looking right at the person.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#100

Post by vmateixeira »

dingo_bat wrote: post #22
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #20

I know these will be preinstalled on Android, but many friends and family use iOS and I will feel silly asking them to install Duo and Allo. Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. Why start requiring separate apps? This is Google at its dumbest. They are squandering the small amount of momentum Hangouts has.

> Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. For varying values of "just fine". For me, hangouts is probably the worst performing app on mobile, desktop and tablet. It's so bad that even Skype shames it. And FaceTime...well let's not even compare.

The fact that it needs a browser plugin in order for the video/voice features to work doesn't help either.
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