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You nailed it. Every 3 years google renames and rebadges their chat system. I don't even know what to call it anymore.

by fswd 4y ago

easrng 4y ago
There's Google Chat, which is really made for companies but available on normal accounts too, and Google Messages, their SMS/MMS/RCS app for Android, which requires that you have an Android phone and a phone plan.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  Also Hangouts, Meet, Duo, Allo, Spaces. I don't even know if all of them are alive now, and I don't care enough to check.
  - lyton 4y ago
    I used Allo for some time. It's long gone now.
  - zeusk 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure there was a Google+ chat, and who remembers Google Talk?
    - joeframbach 4y ago
      And Wave, whatever that was?
      - Izkata 4y ago
        It was Slack/etc years before those existed. They just couldn't figure out how to market it because there were no reference points at the time, so few could see any reason to use it.
        HNHatesUsers 4y ago
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I doubt it's just that. If those things were actually great, people would have embraced them like they did slack. Consider Google+ also. They had plenty of reference points for that. It was just not very good. Google tends to abandon development on new projects way too quickly, before they're ready for mass appeal. They probably expect it to explode like Gmail did. But I think they forget they lost a lot of promotors like us when they abandoned the don't be evil thing. At the time I recommended Gmail to everyone, now I try to get people away from Google :)
        Izkata 4y ago
        Before Slack there was Flowdock (which was never as popular) and I'm pretty sure another I'm forgetting from back then. I used Slack as probably the best-known example. "We couldn't figure out how to market it" was from an interview straight from the people who made it: The companies they pitched to responded with things like "why would we need this, we have email".
      - na85 4y ago
        Buzz
      - kanzenryu2 4y ago
        Loved Wave, thought it was terrible that it got shelved
  - hda111 4y ago
    To be even more confusing, it’s also possible to chat and video conference with the Gmail app. But maybe this changes tomorrow who knows?
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app. Infuriating. Oh, and it opens all links on the built-in chrome browser instead of respecting your default browser settings. There is no option to change the behavior.
      - IX-103 4y ago
        The separate chat app still exists (at least on Android). I have it, because I often like to copy and paste between them.
      - filoleg 4y ago
        > They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app. The first part of it is not true (but the second part is true, in that you can access chats from Gmail as well). I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS, Android, and web (chat.google.com). Even though the web version redirects to a gmail url (mail.google.com/chat), it is still a separate web version, not embedded into gmail. The only thing it shares with gmail is its subdomain, the page itself has zero mention of gmail or any gmail-related functionality.
        dogleash 4y ago
        >I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS I used to have this app installed, then one day it started telling me I had to use the GMail app for chat instead. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they were rolling the out the migration to accounts incrementally, or they've reversed course. But I deleted the google chat app because it wouldn't let me use google chat.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Disco is forgotten usually. From the early smartphone days before Whatsapp and others had firmly won. I believe they even owned Disco.com. I had that app installed way back when.
  - easrng 4y ago
    Hangouts is just another client for Google Chat now, Allo is dead, and Spaces is a feature of Google Chat. Meet and Duo are not chat apps really, but there is a pretty clear separation in that Meet is primarily designed for business meetings (competes with Zoom) and Duo is more primarily for personal use (competes with FaceTime)
    - hiptobecubic 4y ago
      > Spaces is a feature of Google Chat. This is true today, but 3-4 years ago Spaces was actually a completely separate product that was so bad that most Googlers didn't even know it existed. I have never met a single person, including on the Spaces team, that used Spaces for anything. Ever.
- seizethegdgap 4y ago
  Not to be confused with Chat, which is inside the Google Messages app, which is RCS.
  - easrng 4y ago
    That's actually "Chat Features"
- ss108 4y ago
  I think I may make an independent thread about this soon (but my question may be stupid): why does messages use this paradigm of connecting to one's phone directly instead of accessing texts in some centralized fashion? Is that impossible because only the carrier has the contents of the thread (even though other services can be used to post texts)?
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    The surveillance state likes it that way.
samizdis 4y ago
I've posted this link before in comments, but for anyone who's not read this arstechnica piece it is well worth it: A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Wow! This really does cover everything. I just wrote a comment saying Disco is never brought up. It is here.
- ImprovedSilence 4y ago
  Good stuff. To give google a little credit, google talk is what killed off AIM for everyone I knew. Mostly because you could knock out chat and email on one page and it was cool cuz google was not yet being evil and then eventually they had other fun stuff to integrate with like reader and igoogle…
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps How do they keep failing over and over, in the same way, when these failures are a well-known embarrassment? You'd think the CEO would either just ban development of new messaging apps or pick a winner and give it the same kind of care and feeding as GMail.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    I was completely fine with the old Hangouts thing. A small little call/chat system embedded into the inbox. Would occasionally ping friends and occasionally chat.
    - ako 4y ago
      You maybe, but Google is looking for a whatsapp/wechat killer, and will keep trying till they have it, or abandon the idea.
lostlogin 4y ago
> I don't even know what to call it anymore. Google.
erung88 4y ago

You nailed it. Every 3 years google renames and rebadges their chat system. I don't even know what to call it anymore.

by fswd 4y ago

You nailed it. Every 3 years google renames and rebadges their chat system. I don't even know what to call it anymore.

There's Google Chat, which is really made for companies but available on normal accounts too, and Google Messages, their SMS/MMS/RCS app for Android, which requires that you have an Android phone and a phone plan.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Also Hangouts, Meet, Duo, Allo, Spaces. I don't even know if all of them are alive now, and I don't care enough to check.
- lyton 4y ago
  I used Allo for some time. It's long gone now.
- zeusk 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure there was a Google+ chat, and who remembers Google Talk?
  - joeframbach 4y ago
    And Wave, whatever that was?
    - Izkata 4y ago
      It was Slack/etc years before those existed. They just couldn't figure out how to market it because there were no reference points at the time, so few could see any reason to use it.
      - HNHatesUsers 4y ago
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I doubt it's just that. If those things were actually great, people would have embraced them like they did slack. Consider Google+ also. They had plenty of reference points for that. It was just not very good. Google tends to abandon development on new projects way too quickly, before they're ready for mass appeal. They probably expect it to explode like Gmail did. But I think they forget they lost a lot of promotors like us when they abandoned the don't be evil thing. At the time I recommended Gmail to everyone, now I try to get people away from Google :)
        Izkata 4y ago
        Before Slack there was Flowdock (which was never as popular) and I'm pretty sure another I'm forgetting from back then. I used Slack as probably the best-known example. "We couldn't figure out how to market it" was from an interview straight from the people who made it: The companies they pitched to responded with things like "why would we need this, we have email".
    - na85 4y ago
      Buzz
    - kanzenryu2 4y ago
      Loved Wave, thought it was terrible that it got shelved
- hda111 4y ago
  To be even more confusing, it’s also possible to chat and video conference with the Gmail app. But maybe this changes tomorrow who knows?
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app. Infuriating. Oh, and it opens all links on the built-in chrome browser instead of respecting your default browser settings. There is no option to change the behavior.
    - IX-103 4y ago
      The separate chat app still exists (at least on Android). I have it, because I often like to copy and paste between them.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      > They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app. The first part of it is not true (but the second part is true, in that you can access chats from Gmail as well). I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS, Android, and web (chat.google.com). Even though the web version redirects to a gmail url (mail.google.com/chat), it is still a separate web version, not embedded into gmail. The only thing it shares with gmail is its subdomain, the page itself has zero mention of gmail or any gmail-related functionality.
      - dogleash 4y ago
        >I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS I used to have this app installed, then one day it started telling me I had to use the GMail app for chat instead. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they were rolling the out the migration to accounts incrementally, or they've reversed course. But I deleted the google chat app because it wouldn't let me use google chat.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Disco is forgotten usually. From the early smartphone days before Whatsapp and others had firmly won. I believe they even owned Disco.com. I had that app installed way back when.
- easrng 4y ago
  Hangouts is just another client for Google Chat now, Allo is dead, and Spaces is a feature of Google Chat. Meet and Duo are not chat apps really, but there is a pretty clear separation in that Meet is primarily designed for business meetings (competes with Zoom) and Duo is more primarily for personal use (competes with FaceTime)
  - hiptobecubic 4y ago
    > Spaces is a feature of Google Chat. This is true today, but 3-4 years ago Spaces was actually a completely separate product that was so bad that most Googlers didn't even know it existed. I have never met a single person, including on the Spaces team, that used Spaces for anything. Ever.
seizethegdgap 4y ago
Not to be confused with Chat, which is inside the Google Messages app, which is RCS.
- easrng 4y ago
  That's actually "Chat Features"
ss108 4y ago
I think I may make an independent thread about this soon (but my question may be stupid): why does messages use this paradigm of connecting to one's phone directly instead of accessing texts in some centralized fashion? Is that impossible because only the carrier has the contents of the thread (even though other services can be used to post texts)?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  The surveillance state likes it that way.

samizdis 4y ago

I've posted this link before in comments, but for anyone who's not read this arstechnica piece it is well worth it: A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

skinnymuch 4y ago
Wow! This really does cover everything. I just wrote a comment saying Disco is never brought up. It is here.
ImprovedSilence 4y ago
Good stuff. To give google a little credit, google talk is what killed off AIM for everyone I knew. Mostly because you could knock out chat and email on one page and it was cool cuz google was not yet being evil and then eventually they had other fun stuff to integrate with like reader and igoogle…
tablespoon 4y ago
> A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps How do they keep failing over and over, in the same way, when these failures are a well-known embarrassment? You'd think the CEO would either just ban development of new messaging apps or pick a winner and give it the same kind of care and feeding as GMail.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I was completely fine with the old Hangouts thing. A small little call/chat system embedded into the inbox. Would occasionally ping friends and occasionally chat.
  - ako 4y ago
    You maybe, but Google is looking for a whatsapp/wechat killer, and will keep trying till they have it, or abandon the idea.

lostlogin 4y ago

> I don't even know what to call it anymore. Google.

erung88 4y ago