Google Duo and the strategy of death-fattening apps: history repeats itself

Google has transformed its strategy of personal communication through video calls by transforming the once lightweight Google Duo into a kind of supercharged Google Meet. with this step Duo loses the simplicity that gave it value. And he is entering the home stretch of disappearance: as usual at Google, he will end up cannibalized by a larger platform. To encounter.

Instant message-based, person-to-person communication has been a constant for Google since its beginnings with Talk, but it’s evolved through the opening and closing of platforms, a slew of apps, and even duplicities that have coexisted (and coexist) over time. Despite the fact that Google generally offers great quality in all its proposals, it has never been 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 making them bigger.

Google Duo will be the Google Meet that was once Hangouts

We cannot say that Google has been faithful to its developments since everything we use today may disappear tomorrow. Even though 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 undo developments in any area, it’s in direct communication that this lack of a defined strategy accumulates the most. Just follow the path from Google Talk to the present day to check out the drops the company has given despite the fact that normally presented powerful, complete and sometimes popular platforms.

Google Talk started a very long journey in instant messaging that culminated in a Hangouts that gave absolutely everything in the field of communication; be it text, audio or video. Hangouts, Google Meet’s predecessor, was so big that the app only recently completely disappeared. A stone in the way of an increasingly bumpy strategy, this is reflected in the timeline.

• 2008: Google Talk launches alongside Android as a pre-installed messaging app.
• 2011: Google Talk adds video call support in Android 2.3.4.
• 2011: Google+ is coming, with its own messaging applications, 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 are no longer linked to accounts of this social network. Additionally, Hangouts integrates with Google Voice and the app is handed over to Material Design.
• 2014: Google launches Google Messages.
• 2015: Hangouts begins to lose the SMS function, even if it will be finished only 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 preinstalled app on newer versions of Android.
• 2017: Hangouts is updated with news such as new emotes. Faced with rumours, Google assures that Hangouts for consumers will not disappear.
• 2018: Google launches two new messaging applications, initially intended for businesses. Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. However, Google will migrate users from Hangouts to Chat and Meet (even if they are not businesses).
• 2018: Google abandons Hello. Instead, he prefers the RCS standard which will live in Google Messages.
• 2020: Google thinks better about it and decides to make Google Chat free and also suitable for ordinary users.
• 2021: Launch prompts in the Hangouts app to invite users to use Google Chat.
• 2022: Hangouts is removed from Google Play.
• 2022: Google is making Duo bigger by adding Google Meet components to it.
• ¿2023?: The merger is complete and Google Meet completely absorbs Google Duo.

With such a long timeline in terms of key dates, and given the migrations, rebrands and deaths of apps born to be the benchmark in their field, there’s no doubt that Google Duo will end up stretching the camera. Meet has become the benchmark for video calls, both in the private segment and in educational and professional settings. Convert all Google Duo users to Google Meet users is the next step.

Google Duo was too good

2016 was the year Google renewed its commitment to communication with two apps that started with a maxim: ease of use and quality of operation. Google Allo, the equivalent of WhatsApp, is dead despite the fact that it has always maintained the two premises: simplicity and quality. Google Duo has gradually added options while diluting the best of the app: choose a contact and view it instantly with quality and without consuming too much data.

Google Duo has always been one of our top video calling recommendations. And we know it has its audience, some users who appreciate choose a contact, press call and see it. No more, but no less.

By adding the supposed improvements to Google Meet, what the company realizes is that Duo loses its essence for be just another video call app. It will probably continue to be used, although we doubt that those who use it will want calls up to 32 people, links or background effects, for this there are other applications. With this move, Duo will migrate to Meet while retaining the huge volume of installs that the former has: Google Duo usually comes pre-installed on most Android devices.

Google Meet is the new Hangouts, the tool that has monopolized communication at Alphabet. We will see how long his presence will last and how long does it take google to develop new messaging and video calling apps. He does not avoid