![]() ![]() Not only did it add messaging features to apps that didn’t need them, like YouTube, Maps, Photos, and Stadia, but it launched some new apps too. In the years since, Google’s messaging efforts have only become more ridiculous. Despite attempting to mimic WhatsApp’s features, it had none of its user base and was shut down in 2019. In a weird twist, Hangouts has actually managed to outlast Allo, the app that nominally killed it. This was the beginning of the end for Hangouts, although its death wasn’t announced until 2018 and it has taken four years for Google to take it off life support. Over the next few years, Google would add features like SMS integration on Android and the service grew into an undeniable success. It was available on any operating system and any device from launch, though, despite replacing Google Talk, it was missing a few features like audio-calls and online presence indicators. (At the time, Google already had two messaging apps-Google Talk and Google+ Messenger- and two SMS-based options-SMS on Android and Google Voice). But Google wanted it to be more.Īt Google I/O in 2013, the company announced that Hangouts would become a full messaging service replacing Google Talk. It offered free and easy group video chatting in your browser, and was far simpler to use than Skype. While Google+ was a disaster as a social network that utterly failed to compete with Facebook or Twitter, and Google+ Messenger, the text-messaging feature, was incredibly bare bones, mobile only, and caught up in a trademark dispute, Hangouts was pretty popular. Initially, it was a really good product with a clear vision. Google Hangouts ( the original, classic version) launched in 2011 as a video chat feature built into Google+. ![]()
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