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Google Duo (2016)-A video companion app for.Google Allo (2016)-Google's dead-on-arrival WhatsApp clone.Google Spaces (2016)-A messaging app for Google I/O 2016 attendees.The death of Hangouts, unified Google messaging, and hope.Google Hangouts (2013)-Google's greatest messaging service.Google Docs Editor Chat (2013)-Just like Gmail chat, but not integrated with anything.One more competitor-WhatsApp is now worth $22 billion.A competitor emerges-iMessage has entered the chat.Google+ Huddle/Messenger-I guess we should have some kind of DM function.Google+ Hangouts video chat-The first Hangouts.The Google+ Era (2011)-Google's social panic.
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Slide’s Disco (2011)-An independent app escapes the Googleplex.Google Buzz (2010)-The non-consensual social network.Nobody knew what Wave was for or how to use it.Google Wave (2009)-An email killer from the future.Google Voice (2009)-SMS and Phone calls get a dose of the Internet.
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Google Talk ran Android's entire push notification system.Google Talk (2005)-Google's first chat service, built on open protocols.
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Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for a non-stop rollercoaster of new product launches, neglected established products, unexpected shut-downs, and legions of confused, frustrated, and exiled users. While companies like Facebook and Salesforce invest tens of billions of dollars into a lone messaging app, Google seems content only to spin up an innumerable number of under-funded, unstable side projects led by job-hopping project managers. There have been periods when Google briefly produced a good messaging solution, but the constant shutdowns, focus-shifting, and sabotage of established products have stopped Google from carrying much of these user bases-or user goodwill-forward into the present day.īecause no single company has ever failed at something this badly, for this long, with this many different products (and because it has barely been a month since the rollout of Google Chat), the time has come to outline the history of Google messaging. Currently, you would probably rank Google's offerings behind every other big-tech competitor. A lack of any kind of top-down messaging leadership at Google has led to a decade and a half of messaging purgatory, with Google both unable to leave the space altogether and unable to commit to a single product.
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