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Hangouts and now this? Their track-record is one of the reasons I don’t adopt personally or recommenced new Google services to friends and family.

kyrra 8y ago
FYI, there was an update to that article that stated (from the lead for Hangouts) that Hangouts has no set shutdown yet, and they plan on transitioning everyone to Hangouts Chat/Meet before Hangouts Classic goes down. see: https://9to5google.com/2018/12/02/google-hangouts-shutting-down/ https://9to5google.com/2018/12/02/google-hangouts-shutting-d...
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  I read that, but I don’t have much faith. And I would hardly recommend something to the average person in my family when I expect major changes that require them to relearn how to do things. There’s a reason I just recommend FaceTime or Skype to family members, it’s consistency.
  - threatofrain 8y ago
    But on the App Store, you can see that people fondly refer to Duo as the FaceTime for those without FaceTime. If Duo goes away without replacement, I think people will actually miss it.
    - nattaylor 8y ago
      I got a Duo ad Hulu yesterday. I think it will survive
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > FYI, there was an update to that article that stated (from the lead for Hangouts) that Hangouts has no set shutdown yet, and they plan on transitioning everyone to Hangouts Chat/Meet before Hangouts Classic goes down. What does that even mean? As far as I can tell, the whole difference between "Hangouts [Classic]" and "Hangouts Chat/Meet" is that the former was for consumers and the latter was for businesses/enterprises. So they're shutting down the consumer version and moving all consumers to the business/enterprise version of the same product? That would just turn it back into what Hangouts was before they introduced Chat/Meet in the first place!
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > As far as I can tell, the whole difference between "Hangouts [Classic]" and "Hangouts Chat/Meet" is that the former was for consumers and the latter was for businesses/enterprises. Chat and Meet replaced the classic interface for business. So, it's replacing classic for consumers, too. (Which is interesting, because originally Hangouts was being announced to be pivoting to being business exclisive, with Hangouts classic for consumers left as-is with the implication that it, and consumer Hangouts as a thing, would eventually be killed, while Hangouts for business would be further developed, which is what Meet/Chat was. So it looks like Hangouts unpivoted.)
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  I have never understood why Google always exposes these account migrations to end users. Okay, something significant about the implementation is changing, and that takes development time, sure; why do users need to know or care about it? Just figure out how to make the migration as seamless as possible for them.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    They didn't, this was leaked.
    - iainmerrick 8y ago
      From the official blog post: “Allo will continue to work through March 2019 and until then, you’ll be able to export all of your existing conversation history from the app—here are instructions on how to do so.” That’s not terrible, but the bar is very low for this kind of thing. It’s hardly seamless.
kardianos 8y ago
Re-read the updated Hangouts article. It sounds like it isn't going away, just being moved to a new platform. I would guess most consumers won't notice the "change".
s17n 8y ago
What company has a track record of indefinitely supporting products/services which have failed in the marketplace?
- brink 8y ago
  Google considers what most small startups would consider a success, a failure.
- vinay427 8y ago
  Few, but that isn't really the situation here. Google creates largely overlapping products that are bound to be consolidated or shut down altogether, and this is usually clear at the start. If I may rephrase: What company has a track record of creating duplicate products/services and then abandoning them, allowing most to fail in the marketplace?
- berbec 8y ago
  Automobile manufacturers. You can take an El Camino to a Chevy dealership.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    Wow, whole different issue. That's a franchise dealership essentially an independant garage with a dealer logo slapped on the front. The garage then has to source parts and I'm willing to bet the supply of OEM El Camino bumpers ran dry a long time ago.
SwellJoe 8y ago
People use Hangouts. No one I know has ever used Allo. It hasn't even come up in conversation, even when they were marketing it. Hangouts, on the other hand, I get meeting requests all the time that include a Hangouts link. It's a quite popular technology...in my, admittedly limited, experience, it is a leading option, if not the leading option, in the "let's schedule an online meeting" sort of way. So, I have no idea why they're killing Hangouts and it isn't clear to me what I'm supposed to use instead (as I also use Hangouts for that "let's have a meeting" purpose, and no one has ever said, "can we use something else?"). But, I see clearly why they're killing Allo. It could have literally zero users, for all I know. But, Hangouts definitely has a lot of users. I don't think one should group the killing of Allo in with the killing of Hangouts. Killing Allo is a no-brainer, as it was seemingly a bad idea with no market fit (I mean, I guess...I never even looked into what Allo was, because I was happy with Hangouts, but the market has spoken, for sure).
- mcrittenden 8y ago
  I think you're confusing Hangouts with Meet? Meet isn't going away as far as I know.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Isn't "Hangouts Meet"[1] just the enterprise-y version of Hangouts? That's what it looks like on the comparison page[2], minus some Hangouts features that are missing in Hangouts Meet (no text chat, fewer supported browsers) [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.meetings https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [2]: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/meet/switch-from-classic-hangouts/#!/ https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/meet/swit...
  - SwellJoe 8y ago
    I don't know what Meet is. When I add an event in Google Calender, there is an "Add Conferencing" dropdown...in it is "Hangouts". That adds a conference link to the event, which I can then share with whoever I want to meet with. When it comes time to meet, I open the email reminder, or look in my calendar, and click the link. Everybody shows up...we meet. That's Hangouts, as far as I know. It opens in the Hangouts group video UI. I receive these invites from others pretty regularly, so I don't think it's anything mysterious? But, as far as I know I've never received a Meet invite. Google is very bad at branding and marketing is what I think we can learn from this.

kyrra 8y ago

FYI, there was an update to that article that stated (from the lead for Hangouts) that Hangouts has no set shutdown yet, and they plan on transitioning everyone to Hangouts Chat/Meet before Hangouts Classic goes down. see: https://9to5google.com/2018/12/02/google-hangouts-shutting-down/ https://9to5google.com/2018/12/02/google-hangouts-shutting-d...

alphabettsy 8y ago
I read that, but I don’t have much faith. And I would hardly recommend something to the average person in my family when I expect major changes that require them to relearn how to do things. There’s a reason I just recommend FaceTime or Skype to family members, it’s consistency.
- threatofrain 8y ago
  But on the App Store, you can see that people fondly refer to Duo as the FaceTime for those without FaceTime. If Duo goes away without replacement, I think people will actually miss it.
  - nattaylor 8y ago
    I got a Duo ad Hulu yesterday. I think it will survive
chimeracoder 8y ago
> FYI, there was an update to that article that stated (from the lead for Hangouts) that Hangouts has no set shutdown yet, and they plan on transitioning everyone to Hangouts Chat/Meet before Hangouts Classic goes down. What does that even mean? As far as I can tell, the whole difference between "Hangouts [Classic]" and "Hangouts Chat/Meet" is that the former was for consumers and the latter was for businesses/enterprises. So they're shutting down the consumer version and moving all consumers to the business/enterprise version of the same product? That would just turn it back into what Hangouts was before they introduced Chat/Meet in the first place!
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > As far as I can tell, the whole difference between "Hangouts [Classic]" and "Hangouts Chat/Meet" is that the former was for consumers and the latter was for businesses/enterprises. Chat and Meet replaced the classic interface for business. So, it's replacing classic for consumers, too. (Which is interesting, because originally Hangouts was being announced to be pivoting to being business exclisive, with Hangouts classic for consumers left as-is with the implication that it, and consumer Hangouts as a thing, would eventually be killed, while Hangouts for business would be further developed, which is what Meet/Chat was. So it looks like Hangouts unpivoted.)
iainmerrick 8y ago
I have never understood why Google always exposes these account migrations to end users. Okay, something significant about the implementation is changing, and that takes development time, sure; why do users need to know or care about it? Just figure out how to make the migration as seamless as possible for them.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  They didn't, this was leaked.
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    From the official blog post: “Allo will continue to work through March 2019 and until then, you’ll be able to export all of your existing conversation history from the app—here are instructions on how to do so.” That’s not terrible, but the bar is very low for this kind of thing. It’s hardly seamless.

kardianos 8y ago

Re-read the updated Hangouts article. It sounds like it isn't going away, just being moved to a new platform. I would guess most consumers won't notice the "change".

s17n 8y ago

What company has a track record of indefinitely supporting products/services which have failed in the marketplace?

brink 8y ago
Google considers what most small startups would consider a success, a failure.
vinay427 8y ago
Few, but that isn't really the situation here. Google creates largely overlapping products that are bound to be consolidated or shut down altogether, and this is usually clear at the start. If I may rephrase: What company has a track record of creating duplicate products/services and then abandoning them, allowing most to fail in the marketplace?
berbec 8y ago
Automobile manufacturers. You can take an El Camino to a Chevy dealership.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Wow, whole different issue. That's a franchise dealership essentially an independant garage with a dealer logo slapped on the front. The garage then has to source parts and I'm willing to bet the supply of OEM El Camino bumpers ran dry a long time ago.

SwellJoe 8y ago

People use Hangouts. No one I know has ever used Allo. It hasn't even come up in conversation, even when they were marketing it. Hangouts, on the other hand, I get meeting requests all the time that include a Hangouts link. It's a quite popular technology...in my, admittedly limited, experience, it is a leading option, if not the leading option, in the "let's schedule an online meeting" sort of way. So, I have no idea why they're killing Hangouts and it isn't clear to me what I'm supposed to use instead (as I also use Hangouts for that "let's have a meeting" purpose, and no one has ever said, "can we use something else?"). But, I see clearly why they're killing Allo. It could have literally zero users, for all I know. But, Hangouts definitely has a lot of users. I don't think one should group the killing of Allo in with the killing of Hangouts. Killing Allo is a no-brainer, as it was seemingly a bad idea with no market fit (I mean, I guess...I never even looked into what Allo was, because I was happy with Hangouts, but the market has spoken, for sure).

mcrittenden 8y ago
I think you're confusing Hangouts with Meet? Meet isn't going away as far as I know.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Isn't "Hangouts Meet"[1] just the enterprise-y version of Hangouts? That's what it looks like on the comparison page[2], minus some Hangouts features that are missing in Hangouts Meet (no text chat, fewer supported browsers) [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.meetings https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [2]: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/meet/switch-from-classic-hangouts/#!/ https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/meet/swit...
- SwellJoe 8y ago
  I don't know what Meet is. When I add an event in Google Calender, there is an "Add Conferencing" dropdown...in it is "Hangouts". That adds a conference link to the event, which I can then share with whoever I want to meet with. When it comes time to meet, I open the email reminder, or look in my calendar, and click the link. Everybody shows up...we meet. That's Hangouts, as far as I know. It opens in the Hangouts group video UI. I receive these invites from others pretty regularly, so I don't think it's anything mysterious? But, as far as I know I've never received a Meet invite. Google is very bad at branding and marketing is what I think we can learn from this.