With the death of Google Hangouts, Google and iMessage have their last chance at best competition

 Google Hangouts is set to die today. The mobile app has been separately directing people out of the service since July, but the last vestige of the web app, Hangouts, will be shut down today.

For a short time, Hangouts was Google's best, most ambitious, and most popular messaging product, but after 5 billion downloads, Google moved on. Hangouts' close cousin, Google Chat, should now automatically import all your messages and contacts, but the new service is just a shadow of Hangouts' original plan.

The shutdown of Hangouts is the latest chapter in the chaotic history of Google's messaging service. Google Talk launched 17 years ago, and Google still doesn't have a competitive messaging platform. Part of the reason we use Google's many messaging apps is that there is no reliable, stable messaging platform within Google. You can see the problem in the company's 2022 messaging lineup. The Google Workspace team built Google Chat — it was Google's business unit that built the Slack competitor — and then Google Messages, a carrier-focused competitor to Apple's iMessage, seems to have grown out of the Android team. coming. Is the team developing Android more or less important than the team developing Gmail and other Google apps? The reasons for both pursuing messaging are understandable, but splitting Google's user base into two incompatible products made it difficult for either project to gain any traction. In addition to these two big projects, there are also a large number of isolated messaging services in applications such as Google Voice, Google Photos, and Google Pay.

Once upon a time, Google tried to fix this situation. Messages should have a real home in Google, and that home should be (cue the dramatic thunder) Google+. Back in 2011, Google's then-CEO Larry Page believed social media was the future and launched the company-wide Google+ project. The head of G+ received the title of "senior vice president," making him one of eight people reporting directly to Page, who touted Google+ as one of Google's main pillars. The department was supposed to have full control over messaging, and launched the messaging project Google+ Hangouts two years later.

 

Hangouts, code-named "Project Babel," is responsible for unifying Google's messaging portfolio. Google had four messaging apps at the time: Google+ Messenger, Google Talk, an SMS app for Android, and Google Voice. Hangouts launched in 2013 and integrated SMS by the end of the year. By 2014, the app was fully operational and integrated Hangouts messages, text messages, and Google Voice into one app, all available from your phone or anywhere on the internet. With the release of Android 4.4 in 2013, there was no standalone Android SMS app. Hangouts is the only default SMS option.

Google has built its iMessage clone, and it's an incredible service. All your communications can take place in one easy-to-use interface through one messaging app. Google also has a distinct advantage over iMessage due to broad cross-platform compatibility. Hangouts works on Android, iOS, the web, and inside Gmail. That means the service can run natively on phones, watches, cars, tablets, web browsers and even Google Glass. If Google had just kept updating and investing in Hangouts, it might have a strong foothold in messaging today.

But Hangout House fell apart in 2014. The knives only came into service after complaints that Google+ was a "ghost town." Vic Gundotra, Google+ senior vice president and the project's creator, left Google on the same day reports emerged that Google+ resources would be cut and Google+'s forced integration of G+ would end. Hangouts was caught in a dying industry, and while some projects like Google+ Photos managed to grow into a stable landing spot, Hangouts didn’t, and by 2015 you’d be seeing regular complaints from customers that the project was underfunded.

Another "problem" with Hangouts is that it's a blow to cell phone carriers. Carriers don't like combining SMS and OTT messaging services into one app. They wanted something focused on SMS -- and only SMS -- so users wouldn't be tempted not to use the carrier's offerings. Google caved in and introduced standalone Google Messages in the next Android version. Hangouts' reign as Google's top all-in-one messaging service only lasted about a year, thanks to Google's lack of organization and perseverance. Hangouts, which has been shipping as an abandoned zombie product, is still better than Google's flood of new messaging services that followed, and today, it's finally being abandoned.

Google is horribly aware that it's losing the information war

Hangouts is the company's best and most complete messaging service, an excellent alternative to iMessage that is unmatched by the dozens of other messaging apps the company makes. The saddest thing about Google’s shutdown of Hangouts is that it’s not until now, in 2022, that the company realizes that competing with iMessage might be a good idea.

Inside iMessage, Apple humiliated Android users by displaying messages as green bubbles instead of iMessage's blue bubbles, and The Youths have apparently been following Apple's lead and bullying people over their choice of phone. Google is now facing the reality that the Wall Street Journal is publishing an article about "how teens are afraid of green text bubbles," and pop star Drake is writing a Billboard Top 100 song about the inner workings of iMessage. The upshot of all of this is that a staggering 87% of American teens now own an iPhone, al