6 ms·

The other day Slack was down and someone proposed we use Google Chat[1], had no idea they built a Slack competitor. [1] https://chat.google.com/ https://chat.g

by iooi 6y ago

The other day Slack was down and someone proposed we use Google Chat[1], had no idea they built a Slack competitor. [1] https://chat.google.com/ https://chat.google.com/

bpodgursky 6y ago
I opened this up, and there's a new concept called rooms... but there's no way for me to create a room, as far as I can tell? And I don't have access to any others? Weird.
- lima 6y ago
  There's a plus sign at the top of the rooms list (assuming you're logged in with a GSuite account).
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    It's my personal gmail. Why make this page available if it doesn't work for normal gmail?
    - terinjokes 6y ago
      They're in the process of opening it up to individuals, but it hasn't formally been announced as generally available.
lima 6y ago
It's quite nice, really. Good enough for us to drop Slack. Google is slowly replacing all their messaging products with this - Hangouts for GSuite customers is going away, and presumably this is why they drop the Voice integration. The way they do threading - everything being a thread, at the top level - is more natural than Slack's. Collaboration with external teams is seamless, you can add any GSuite or GMail accounts to a room. Much less annoying than being logged into a dozen external Slack workspaces. Automatic permission management for Drive docs. Drop a link into a channel and it'll prompt to auto-add the right permissions that give everyone in the channel access.
- computerphage 6y ago
  > Google is slowly replacing all their messaging products with this This is exactly what Google used to say about hangouts! https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2017/03/updates-in-g-suite-to-streamline-hangouts-and-gmail.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2017/03/updates-in-g...
- kortilla 6y ago
  > Collaboration with external teams is seamless, you can add any GSuite or GMail accounts to a room. And when a collaborating company isn’t on Google?
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
That is totally bonkers, I've used GSuite for years (which I generally really like, although on the topic of mindless Google branding decisions I guess it's now Google Workspace), and I also had no idea this existed.
thelastwave 6y ago
The message and skimpy page they serve here if you browse that url signed into gmail could be an object lesson in how to invite product failure.
thallium205 6y ago
We dropped Slack for GSuite Chat because as a healthcare company bound to HIPAA rules, Slack wanted to charge us $250k to sign a BAA while Google offered it for free. Having a closer integration with Drive and Gmail really makes me wonder why anyone using GSuite would use Slack tbh.
- donor20 6y ago
  We do screensharing + voice call after chatting all the time. With google chat it sends you to the beginning of a google meet flow. Now you have a silly dance to get a meeting going with the person you are working with. In slack you click the phone icon, and voice is live, then screen share and voila. Same app etc.
  - YetAnotherNick 6y ago
    There is a different problem though slack call has many more issues than Google meet. It's anecdotal but it's not infrequent between all the colleagues that we stopped using it altogether.
    - donor20 6y ago
      What are you using instead? I keep on getting yelled at the zoom is insecure etc. But actually no one actually wants the waiting rooms and no one is willing to name the alternative that they use that is better. I interact with a hundreds of folks often with only 1 or 2 chances to speak, and zoom gets everyone in / on much more reliabily in my experience. Same with slack. We are using slack between companies now, and trying to figure out google's chat app strategy with video / screen sharing integration is a NIGHTMARE (even though we pay for gsuite so would prefer it). You have meet, hangouts, chat etc. Some things are in gmail, some things are not. The integration between everything is broken (we also use google voice). We've had issues where I guess folks have domain admins that block them joining a meet call? WHAT! So no your invitee can't get in etc.
      - YetAnotherNick 6y ago
jasonv 6y ago
I use hangouts because it's right there in Gmail. The last few timse I looked at Chats, it couldn't connect with my other @gmail users. Now it does. That's nice. But rooms doesn't work yet (someone else said it's coming to Gmail), and I can't see how to make Chats show up in Gmail yet, so I can't turn off Hangouts yet, and is it even possible to? Will chat show up in the right sidebar of Gmail, or below the labels in the left bar?

by iooi 6y ago

The other day Slack was down and someone proposed we use Google Chat[1], had no idea they built a Slack competitor. [1] https://chat.google.com/ https://chat.google.com/

bpodgursky 6y ago

I opened this up, and there's a new concept called rooms... but there's no way for me to create a room, as far as I can tell? And I don't have access to any others? Weird.

lima 6y ago
There's a plus sign at the top of the rooms list (assuming you're logged in with a GSuite account).
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  It's my personal gmail. Why make this page available if it doesn't work for normal gmail?
  - terinjokes 6y ago
    They're in the process of opening it up to individuals, but it hasn't formally been announced as generally available.

lima 6y ago

It's quite nice, really. Good enough for us to drop Slack. Google is slowly replacing all their messaging products with this - Hangouts for GSuite customers is going away, and presumably this is why they drop the Voice integration. The way they do threading - everything being a thread, at the top level - is more natural than Slack's. Collaboration with external teams is seamless, you can add any GSuite or GMail accounts to a room. Much less annoying than being logged into a dozen external Slack workspaces. Automatic permission management for Drive docs. Drop a link into a channel and it'll prompt to auto-add the right permissions that give everyone in the channel access.

computerphage 6y ago
> Google is slowly replacing all their messaging products with this This is exactly what Google used to say about hangouts! https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2017/03/updates-in-g-suite-to-streamline-hangouts-and-gmail.html https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2017/03/updates-in-g...
kortilla 6y ago
> Collaboration with external teams is seamless, you can add any GSuite or GMail accounts to a room. And when a collaborating company isn’t on Google?

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

That is totally bonkers, I've used GSuite for years (which I generally really like, although on the topic of mindless Google branding decisions I guess it's now Google Workspace), and I also had no idea this existed.

thelastwave 6y ago

The message and skimpy page they serve here if you browse that url signed into gmail could be an object lesson in how to invite product failure.

thallium205 6y ago

We dropped Slack for GSuite Chat because as a healthcare company bound to HIPAA rules, Slack wanted to charge us $250k to sign a BAA while Google offered it for free. Having a closer integration with Drive and Gmail really makes me wonder why anyone using GSuite would use Slack tbh.

donor20 6y ago
We do screensharing + voice call after chatting all the time. With google chat it sends you to the beginning of a google meet flow. Now you have a silly dance to get a meeting going with the person you are working with. In slack you click the phone icon, and voice is live, then screen share and voila. Same app etc.
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago
  There is a different problem though slack call has many more issues than Google meet. It's anecdotal but it's not infrequent between all the colleagues that we stopped using it altogether.
  - donor20 6y ago
    What are you using instead? I keep on getting yelled at the zoom is insecure etc. But actually no one actually wants the waiting rooms and no one is willing to name the alternative that they use that is better. I interact with a hundreds of folks often with only 1 or 2 chances to speak, and zoom gets everyone in / on much more reliabily in my experience. Same with slack. We are using slack between companies now, and trying to figure out google's chat app strategy with video / screen sharing integration is a NIGHTMARE (even though we pay for gsuite so would prefer it). You have meet, hangouts, chat etc. Some things are in gmail, some things are not. The integration between everything is broken (we also use google voice). We've had issues where I guess folks have domain admins that block them joining a meet call? WHAT! So no your invitee can't get in etc.
    - YetAnotherNick 6y ago

jasonv 6y ago

I use hangouts because it's right there in Gmail. The last few timse I looked at Chats, it couldn't connect with my other @gmail users. Now it does. That's nice. But rooms doesn't work yet (someone else said it's coming to Gmail), and I can't see how to make Chats show up in Gmail yet, so I can't turn off Hangouts yet, and is it even possible to? Will chat show up in the right sidebar of Gmail, or below the labels in the left bar?