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Google already had a product that could've beated WhatsApp, iMessage and every other messaging app. It was called Google Talk/Chat. It was sticky b/c it was emb
by AznHisoka 9y ago
Google already had a product that could've beated WhatsApp, iMessage and every other messaging app. It was called Google Talk/Chat. It was sticky b/c it was embedded in Gmail. They killed it.
- arebop 9y agoAlso it was reliable and interoperated fairly well despite other chat providers' sporadic attempts to build moats.
- m-p-3 9y agoWasn't it called Google Talk? And it was based on Jabber/XMPP, which let you use any compatible client. I hate that they dropped support for it, choosing to go with a proprietary protocol without any public APIs.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoIt was Talk, but I think before it was a separate offering/app, it was just "chat on Gmail", and hence, "GChat" took off as an informal name for it.
- AznHisoka 9y agoYep, sorry, Google Talk. Edited my message
- cjhopman 9y ago> which let you use any compatible client Which means that third-parties can easily capture large parts of the "friends" graph with just a small number of users consenting to give them data. You're also now entrusting your communications to whatever clients other people are using without any chance/need for you to consent to their privacy policies.
- jitix 9y agoFor me Gtalk was the Yahoo Messenger of late 2000s. Me and my friends almost exclusively used Gtalk since it was very lightweight, it worked well, and you could use any of the large number of free clients with it.
- NelsonMinar 9y agoGoogle had Slack too, two years before Slack, in the form of Wave.