My point was that Google Hangouts, iMessage, etc. can do some or all of those things, but only on their own silo'ed platform. I'm a Google Hangouts user so I ha

My point was that Google Hangouts, iMessage, etc. can do some or all of those things, but only on their own silo'ed platform. I'm a Google Hangouts user so I have no good way of communicating with my iOS friends unless they download extra software onto their phones and we communicate using a third party app. I don't want to use five apps to cover my bases. I wouldn't even mind having to have a Google Hangouts, iMessage, Jabber, etc. account and be able to add ALL of those accounts to a single IM app so that I can communicate with all of those people in a consistent way.