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I think the way they see it is: Voice is basically deprecated Hangouts is enterprise Allo and Duo compete with Whatsapp/iMessage and Facetime/Skype respectiv

I think the way they see it is: Voice is basically deprecated Hangouts is enterprise Allo and Duo compete with Whatsapp/iMessage and Facetime/Skype respectively

77ko 10y ago
Not quite: - Facebook Messenger combines all the functionality of Allo and Duo. - Whatsapp already has voice calling and is adding video soon (so I read on the internet) - iMessage and Facetime integrate in IOS much better than Google Duo does. In IOS, you go to a contact and press facetime. On Android, you go to a contact... then go back out to Duo and call them. WeChat, of course, does everything that all these apps will ever do - as of many years ago.
- floopidydoopidy 10y ago
  I feel like ICQ 98 was the pinnacle of chat applications. Floating contacts and email style messages... brilliance.
  - wingerlang 10y ago
    > email style messages Care to elaborate? I'm having trouble picturing what you mean. Long form with styling?
  - the_other 10y ago
    The "find random chat partner" feature was so addictive!
  - ashark 10y ago
    Strongly agree. It's still unsurpassed. And it worked well on systems with 64mb of RAM (maybe even less) without stomping all over the rest of the programs you were running. Seems like no-one can even "Hello World" a desktop app these days without a 100mb download and requiring several hundred MB of memory all to itself.
- naviehuynh 10y ago
  you can call/message a person from contact page directly, I have done that with whatsapp
- joosters 10y ago
  I was visiting China recently and started using WeChat... it really is far ahead of other messaging apps, the amount of integration with other services is staggering (many shops offer payment through the app, QR codes to link to WeChat are commonplace, even my hotel advertised its wifi settings through WeChat!) I wonder if WeChat will try to push the service more outside of China?
riffraff 10y ago
but hangouts lacks things which are useful for enterprises such as video recording (it's possible only if you make a "hangout on air", afaiu) and, in my experience, screen sharing text/code is painful because of the video encoding making it unreadable. To me hangouts looks like a competitor to Skype only, at this time.
- rahoulb 10y ago
  Hangouts on air is being replaced by Youtube Live
pmontra 10y ago
Duo competes with Facetime, except it's not integrated in Contacts and I can't imagine why. Duo and Facetime don't compete with Skype because they don't have the IM part which is a very important component of Skype. I used it for all these years as an IM client (business or friends), less as audio and rarely as video. But video is always the least used form of communication. Still I'd like to see some global usage stats of Skype: minutes by chat, voice, video. My customers, friends and I could be the outliers.
threeseed 10y ago
Except that Skype can be used for text chat like Allo. And Apple doesn't really treat Facetime as an app.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  > And Apple doesn't really treat Facetime as an app. It's a separate app on the iPhone, no?

I think the way they see it is: Voice is basically deprecated Hangouts is enterprise Allo and Duo compete with Whatsapp/iMessage and Facetime/Skype respectively

77ko 10y ago

Not quite: - Facebook Messenger combines all the functionality of Allo and Duo. - Whatsapp already has voice calling and is adding video soon (so I read on the internet) - iMessage and Facetime integrate in IOS much better than Google Duo does. In IOS, you go to a contact and press facetime. On Android, you go to a contact... then go back out to Duo and call them. WeChat, of course, does everything that all these apps will ever do - as of many years ago.

floopidydoopidy 10y ago
I feel like ICQ 98 was the pinnacle of chat applications. Floating contacts and email style messages... brilliance.
- wingerlang 10y ago
  > email style messages Care to elaborate? I'm having trouble picturing what you mean. Long form with styling?
- the_other 10y ago
  The "find random chat partner" feature was so addictive!
- ashark 10y ago
  Strongly agree. It's still unsurpassed. And it worked well on systems with 64mb of RAM (maybe even less) without stomping all over the rest of the programs you were running. Seems like no-one can even "Hello World" a desktop app these days without a 100mb download and requiring several hundred MB of memory all to itself.
naviehuynh 10y ago
you can call/message a person from contact page directly, I have done that with whatsapp
joosters 10y ago
I was visiting China recently and started using WeChat... it really is far ahead of other messaging apps, the amount of integration with other services is staggering (many shops offer payment through the app, QR codes to link to WeChat are commonplace, even my hotel advertised its wifi settings through WeChat!) I wonder if WeChat will try to push the service more outside of China?

riffraff 10y ago

but hangouts lacks things which are useful for enterprises such as video recording (it's possible only if you make a "hangout on air", afaiu) and, in my experience, screen sharing text/code is painful because of the video encoding making it unreadable. To me hangouts looks like a competitor to Skype only, at this time.

rahoulb 10y ago
Hangouts on air is being replaced by Youtube Live

pmontra 10y ago

Duo competes with Facetime, except it's not integrated in Contacts and I can't imagine why. Duo and Facetime don't compete with Skype because they don't have the IM part which is a very important component of Skype. I used it for all these years as an IM client (business or friends), less as audio and rarely as video. But video is always the least used form of communication. Still I'd like to see some global usage stats of Skype: minutes by chat, voice, video. My customers, friends and I could be the outliers.

threeseed 10y ago

Except that Skype can be used for text chat like Allo. And Apple doesn't really treat Facetime as an app.

denzil_correa 10y ago
> And Apple doesn't really treat Facetime as an app. It's a separate app on the iPhone, no?