A really long article about Google messaging apps on Ars Technica. Read the whole story at:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/

Google Talk, Google's first-ever instant messaging platform, launched on August 24, 2005. This company has been in the messaging business for 16 years, meaning Google has been making messaging clients for longer than some of its rivals have existed. But thanks to a decade and a half of nearly constant strategy changes, competing product launches, and internal sabotage, you can't say Google has a dominant or even stable instant messaging platform today.

[...]

Because no single company has ever failed at something this badly, for this long, with this many different products (and because it has barely been a month since the rollout of Google Chat), the time has come to outline the history of Google messaging. Prepare yourselves, dear readers, for a non-stop rollercoaster of new product launches, neglected established products, unexpected shut-downs, and legions of confused, frustrated, and exiled users.


Table of Contents

Google Talk (2005)—Google's first chat service, built on open protocols
Google Talk ran Android's entire push notification system
The slow death of GTalk
Google Voice (2009)—SMS and Phone calls get a dose of the Internet
Google Wave (2009)—An email killer from the future
Nobody knew what Wave was for or how to use it
Google Buzz (2010)—The non-consensual social network
Slide’s Disco (2011)—An independent app escapes the Googleplex
The Google+ Era (2011)—Google's social panic
Google+ Hangouts video chat—The first Hangouts
Google+ Huddle/Messenger—I guess we should have some kind of DM function
A competitor emerges—iMessage has entered the chat
One more competitor—WhatsApp is now worth $22 billion
Google Docs Editor Chat (2013)—Just like Gmail chat, but not integrated with anything
Google Hangouts (2013)—Google's greatest messaging service
The death of Hangouts, unified Google messaging, and hope
Google Spaces (2016)—A messaging app for Google I/O 2016 attendees
Google Allo (2016)—Google's dead-on-arrival WhatsApp clone
Allo's legacy: The Google Assistant
Google Duo (2016)—A video companion app for... WhatsApp?
Google (Hangouts) Meet (2017)—Not Zoom
YouTube Messages (2017)—Yes, this was really a thing
Google (Hangouts) Chat (2018)—Part 1: Cloning Slack is actually a good idea
Google Maps Messages (2018)—Business messaging, now with the instability of Google
Google & RCS (2019)—So we found this dusty old messaging standard in a closet...
RCS is bad, and anyone who likes it should feel bad
Google Photos Messages (2019)—You get a messaging feature! And YOU! And you!
Google Stadia Messages (2020)—Two great tastes that taste great together
Google Pay Messages (2021)—We actually learned nothing from Google Allo
Google Assistant Messages (2021)—Text and voice chat, for families?
Google Phone Messaging (2021)—Isn't this going a little too far?
Google Chat, Part 2 (2021)—No wait, this is actually a consumer app now!
Is anyone in charge at Google?

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* Origin: . (21:3/102)

On 26 Aug 2021 at 08:45a, Oli pondered and said...

Is anyone in charge at Google?

We used to joke that to get headcount you had to build
a messaging app, and to get promoted to distinguished
engineer you had to create a new programming language.
When one of my good friends made principle I ribbed him
to see the grammar for his new language.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: "The history of Google messaging apps"
By: Oli to All on Thu Aug 26 2021 08:45 am

A really long article about Google messaging apps on Ars Technica. Read the whole story at:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-t history-of-google-messaging-apps/

While it is hillarious, we should never forget that Google controls the GCM on which a lot of their competitors run. They have beaten their competitors because they provide the stuff their competitors need to run at all.

If you use Signal Messenger, unless you do extra work to avoid it, you are going to be using Google's messaging infrastructure anyway. You use *anything* from an Android phone, you are using Google's network 90% guaranteed, even if the application is not Google's.

--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)

On 26 Aug 2021, Oli said the following...

A really long article about Google messaging apps on Ars Technica. Read the whole story at:

Really liked Talk as well as when it turned in to Hangouts. HOs was really good until they ruined it. Now I mainly use a mix between Telegram and Google Messages as well as some others.

Once really interesting thing I've found is that with the rollout of Chat (in Gmail) is that all of my old Hangouts are there with most of the messages still saved.

-=>Richard Miles<=-
-=>Captain Obvious<=-
-=>bbs.shadowscope.com<=-

... I got everything but the part after "Now listen closely."

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/08/19 (Windows/32)
* Origin: * Shadowscope BBS * (21:1/157)