Google has turned its personal communication strategy through video calls by transforming the once lightweight Google Duo into a kind of hypervitaminized Google Meet. with this step Duo loses the simplicity that gave it value. And it enters the final stretch of disappearance: as usual in Google, it will end up cannibalized by a larger platform. Meet.
Instant communication based on person-to-person messages has been a constant for Google since it debuted with Talk, but its evolution has gone through the opening and closing of platforms, a multitude of applications and even duplicities that coexisted (and coexist) in time. Despite the fact that Google usually offers great quality in all its proposals, it was never comfortable in the field of messaging, both written and video and audio. His strategy of opening and closing platforms does not help, nor does his mania for fattening them up.
Google Duo will be the Google Meet that used to be Hangouts
It cannot be said that Google is faithful to its developments since everything we use today may disappear tomorrow. Even if it works and retains users, Google Reader or Inbox by Gmail are good examples. In fact, the “Google App Graveyard” is full of those who have fallen in the line of duty, often in misunderstood ways.
Although Google can cancel developments in any field, it is in direct communication where this lack of a defined strategy accumulates the most. It is enough to follow the path from Google Talk to the present day to verify the tumbles that the company gave despite the fact that normally featured powerful, comprehensive, and sometimes popular platforms.
Google Talk began a very long journey in instant messaging that led to a Hangouts that gave absolutely everything in the field of communication; be it text, audio or video. Hangouts, the predecessor of Google Meet, have had so much importance that the app did not completely disappear until recently. A stone in the way of an increasingly bumpy strategy, this is reflected in the chronology.
- 2008: Google Talk launches alongside Android as the pre-installed messaging app.
- 2011: Google Talk adds support for video calls in Android 2.3.4.
- 2011: Google+ arrives, with its own messaging apps, Messenger and Hangouts.
- 2012: Google cleans up and merges Google Talk, Messenger and Hangouts (Google Talk for Windows continued to work until 2015).
- 2013: Hangouts is postulated as the definitive messaging app by also adding SMS
- 2014: Google begins to remove traces of Google+ from Hangouts: profiles no longer link to accounts on this social network. In addition, Hangouts integrates with Google Voice and the app is passed to Material Design.
- 2014: Google launches Google Messages.
- 2015: Hangouts begins to lose the SMS function, although it will not be completed until two years later.
- 2016: Google launches Allo and Duo, but ensures that Allo does not replace, but coexists with Hangouts. Hangouts is no longer a pre-installed app on new versions of Android.
- 2017: Hangouts is updated with news such as new emotes. Before the rumors, Google assures that Hangouts for consumers is not going to disappear.
- 2018: Google launches two new messaging apps, initially for companies. Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. However, Google will migrate users from Hangouts to Chat and Meet (even if they are not companies).
- 2018: Google gives up on Allo. Instead it prefers the RCS standard that will live in Google Messages.
- 2020: Google thinks better of it and decides to make Google Chat free and also suitable for ordinary users.
- 2021: Start prompts in the Hangouts app to invite users to use Google Chat.
- 2022: Hangouts is removed from Google Play.
- 2022: Google fattens up Duo by adding Google Meet components to it.
- 2023?: The merger is completed and Google Meet completely absorbs Google Duo.
With such a long timeline in terms of key dates, and given the migrations, name changes and deaths of apps that were born to be the benchmark in their field, there is no doubt that Google Duo will end up stretching the camera. Meet has become the benchmark in terms of video calls, both in the private segment and in educational and professional environments. Convert all Google Duo users to Google Meet users is the next step.
Google Duo was too good
Google Duo migrated into Google Meet. google image
2016 was the year in which Google renewed its commitment to communication with two applications that started with a maxim: ease of use and quality in operation. Google Allo, the equivalent of WhatsApp, died despite the fact that it always maintained both premises: simplicity and quality. Google Duo gradually added options while diluting the best of the app: choose a contact and see them instantly with quality and without consuming too much data.
Google Duo has always been one of our top recommendations when it comes to video calls. And we know that it has its audience, some users who value choose a contact, press call and see him. No more, but no less.
By adding the supposed improvements of Google Meet, what the company achieves is that Duo loses its essence to be just another video call app. It will probably continue to be used, although we doubt that those who use it want calls of up to 32 people, links or background effects, for that there are other applications. With this movement, Duo will migrate to Meet while maintaining the enormous volume of installations that the first has: Google Duo usually comes pre-installed on most Android devices.
Google Meet is the new Hangouts, the tool that monopolized communication at Alphabet. We will see how long his presence lasts and how long does it take Google to develop new messaging and video calling applications. It does not eschew
