
Google's Hangouts blunder helped WhatsApp - luu
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/software-services/Googles-Hangouts-blunder-helped-WhatsApp/articleshow/30837560.cms
======
Zikes
Hangouts is one of the worst messaging services I've ever used, and it pains
me to be so locked into it. Unfortunately all of my friends and I jumped in on
Google Talk back when it was still great, and no suitable alternative has yet
come forth.

I was also an early adopter of Google Voice, which is now heavily integrated
with Hangouts, and the recent merger of the two services has made it even
worse. When Hangouts is signed in on my desktop and I receive a phone call on
my GV number it will often only ring on my desktop and not on my phone, _and
there is no way to turn this feature off_.

Additionally, some of my friends have poor internet service and Hangouts
handles that about as well as a toddler falling down an up escalator. Messages
are frequently significantly delayed or dropped altogether, we often find
ourselves asking each other what messages we have and have not received
because our chat windows frequently do not match up.

There are few things more infuriating than having a messaging service tell me
it has delivered a message when it actually silently failed to send it.

~~~
ohazi
The thing that still infuriates me about the new hangouts experience is that
they still don't understand the difference between status and presence.

If I don't have some way of knowing whether someone is actively at their
keyboard, or has their phone/tablet screen on, and is likely to see my message
and respond instantly, then my only recourse is to stare blankly at my display
and hope that they show up. This is a huge fucking waste of time. Right now
the "green chat bubble" means that the person (is at their computer || owns a
smartphone).

Blindingly useless.

~~~
mentaat
to be fair hangouts does show you if the user is typing from mobile or not.
but this feature is limited without knowing about presence.

presence is one feature that i liked a lot in google talk and i am baffled
this was removed in hangouts. anyone know why?

~~~
ohazi
The only reason I can fathom for something like this is that someone genuinely
thought that by taking away features and making the experience "more like
texting," they could somehow magically convert texters into hangout-ers.

And that perhaps by lying to users and telling them that all their friends are
"online" even when they clearly aren't, people will be more likely to chat
with them and "grow" the service. Nevermind that you need another person to
actually be there before you can have a conversation.

There must have been at least a _fraction_ of the hangouts development team
that thought this was a boneheaded idea. And the millions of complaints that
they got when they released? Those didn't stop because the experience got
better, they stopped because it was clear that nothing was going to change.
This screams "management decision" to me.

------
brandon272
In my view, none of the mobile OS manufacturers have a good handle on
messaging. I don't like Hangouts, I didn't like iMessage. WhatsApp is OK but
no one I know uses it.

When I was a kid and spent a lot of time planted in front of my computer
IM'ing with friends locally and around the world, I loved messaging! There
were a few great general IM apps that would allow me to connect to multiple
services all under a unified interface. Some friends on MSN? Some friends on
AIM? Not a problem, just add those accounts to my preferences. I could see
when people were online, the messaging seemed reliable and consistent (for the
most part), I was able to see when/if things were delivered, I could see when
people were typing a message to me.

15 years later and I feel like people have shifted a lot of their lives to
mobile but the solutions we have to work with to communicate are half of what
they used to be. Are my friends online? Who knows. Can I see any kind of
status if they're an iPhone user? Definitely not. Did the message I just sent
actually get delivered? I hope so! Oh, let me launch Skype for two minutes so
I can send a message to one of the two friends I have on that platform.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I disagree with a lot of this.

iMessage always works very well for me and I love that it's integrated with
SMS so cleanly. It also provides read receipts so I know if a message has been
received.

I don't use WhatsApp but a competitor of its called Viber which also does
calls and it works well and includes delivered and seen receipts. It also
tells me if the user is online which is very useful.

Facebook messenger also works great imo and is one of my most used
communication methods.

10 years ago I was also using IM a lot. I'd come home from school every day
and use it until I went to bed. MSN was the Facebook of the day. Fortunately
everyone I knew used MSN (it was ubiquitous with IM here). I used Adium on
Linux and thought it was a nice client but I think today we're in a much
better position than before. Fragmentation seems to be much worse today but
handling that is as simple as installing an app for the service a specific
friend uses. The fact we have push notifications means I don't need to check
in with 10 apps to see if I got a message - I'm alerted when a message is
received and who it's from and in what app I can view it. It would be nice to
use one app but I don't think the fragmentation is too big of a user
experience problem.

Personally I wish everyone would just use SMS! Most plans for smartphones come
with unlimited SMS nowadays. I hate having to send my communications through
so many companies with questionable privacy practices. The only place SMS is
problematic is when messaging abroad but I doubt that's a major concern for
most people (and they can use one of the plethora of other methods for
messaging abroad anyway).

~~~
jodrellblank
_The only place SMS is problematic is when messaging abroad_

Or when you don't want to give people your phone number.

When you don't have a phone number (data only cellular or WiFi only tablet).

When you don't want your messaging ID tied to a number owned by a phone
company that you can't control and instead want it tied to your own domain
name / email.

When you want to be able to send as different IDs (personal, work,
consulting).

When you want some way to send pictures, formatted text, transfer files.

When you want to send/receive messages on your desktop, or tablet as well.
Either switching between devices or using multiple devices at the same time.

When you want to send/receive more than a few characters in one message.

When you want to integrate into another service, e.g. an IRC bridge, because
it's not just data there's no open API to link to. And even if your plan has
unlimited SMS the days when you could email -> sms freely are pretty much
gone.

(And if you don't have unlimited SMS).

SMS is terrible, the worst possible implementation of sending text between
people. The only good point to it is that every phone can do it - and that
doesn't even apply now in the days of iPod touches and smaller tablets that
are basically smartphones /without the phone/.

~~~
ashayh
Agree with all your points.

For those who want to SMS from their desktop or tablet,
[http://mightytext.net/](http://mightytext.net/) solves the following problem:

|When you want to send/receive messages on your desktop, or tablet as well.

------
teleclimber
Recent anecdote: My parents and brother were on WhatsApp and were trying to
get me on it. I tried to get them on Hangouts instead since we all had it on
our phones already.

So I convinced dad to try it with me. He wanted to send me a pic. Right away
Hangouts on his phone said something about how sending pics required G+, but
maybe he could skip that step, or not, we couldn't figure wtf was going on.

So now we're all on WhatsApp (and I love it). It just worked right away.

I can see in my crystal ball that Google's downfall will be:

\- attempting to passive-aggressive force everybody into their G+ world.

\- making every Google service so dependent on other services (namely G+) that
every simple task will be interrupted by some sort of "Would you like to join
G+.."

edit: formatting.

~~~
vertex-four
Google+ suffers from the fact that it refers to two different things. One is
an identity system - your Google+ account is your identity. The other is a
social network, which your identity is tied to.

The thing is, because of the "your Google+ account is your identity"
perspective, it seems obvious from the point of view of Google's developers
that all their social services should depend on it. But from everyone else's
perspective, they don't want to sign up for a new social network.

~~~
teleclimber
That's a good observation. I never thought of it that way.

------
moskie
Hangouts' killer feature is a proper desktop (web) client.

For all its warts (which don't end up bothering me much), the fact that
Hangouts' messages are available on my/any desktop, where I can communicate
with a full keyboard, is a necessity for me. It's the chief reason why I've
dismissed WhatsApp as a replacement.

(and since I don't use an iOS device or Mac, iMessage isn't an option either.)

~~~
davis_m
The web client is a horrible experience on the Mac. The design decisions of
the group that put it together are horrible. Why in the world did they think
that sticking the app to the corner of my screen is okay? Why does it follow
me across every workspace? Why do they insist on interacting with the
application in a different way than every other application on my machine?

If you want to make a webapp, fine, make a webapp and leave it in my browser
like every other webapp. If you want to make a native client, make a native
client. Don't do this half-assed crap that does nothing well.

~~~
moskie
Are you using the Hangouts extension? Yea, I hate that. Don't use it. I just
use Hangouts in Gmail.

~~~
plg
this in itself illustrates one of the problems with hangouts... why are there
these two different ways of running it? where am I told which to use? how do I
explain to my grandma that she shouldn't be using an "extension" but if she
wants to video chat with me, she has to ... go to her email?? it's all very,
very confusing

~~~
Andrex
Huh? You can video chat with the extension. All versions of Hangouts are
basically the same, your Grandma wouldn't be able to tell the difference nor
would she care.

------
RyanZAG
Literally everything Google has done/changed in the last 5? years has been
terrible. It's actually fairly amazing how many mistakes they are making.

Search? More adverts, non-PC results lowered in priority, 'piracy' results
lowered, etc.

Gmail? Luckily hasn't changed much so it's still pretty great, but the stuff
they have changed is bad: eg, advert tabs.

Google Reader? Dead.

Google Talk? Dead, replaced with terrible Hangouts.

Google+. Don't need to comment here.

Android? Less and less open with more functionality moving into 'cloud
services' to try and lock out competition/forking.

Google Glass? Nice idea but not practical because the implementation is still
bad.

I'm sure there are more mistakes I'm forgetting. Anybody know of anything
Google has actually done right in the last 5 years? Maybe Google Fibre if
you're part of the 0.0000001% of the world who can get it.

~~~
RestlessMind
Chrome - getting better and better (and more importantly, pushing competitors
to improve - like IE10 vd IE6)

Search - knowledge graph and answer cards

Android - Google Now and voice interface

Hangouts - the original product, for video chats

~~~
mark_l_watson
+1 sure I am pissed at the cancellation of Wave and irritated a bit by the
cancelation of Reader, but you accurately list what I agree are their
successes.

I worked briefly with Knowledge Graph while consulting at Google last year,
and in future forms I think KG is going to eat the world - great technology.

I also like Google Now and expect it to keep getting better.

~~~
aeturnum
I've had a roundly "meh" experience with Google Now. Most of the information
it shows me isn't relevant to me and anything that is relevant is information
I already knew (I know how long it takes to get home from work, I do it every
day). I like the idea, but I haven't been able to get much use out of it. How
do you generally utilize it?

~~~
nickonline
\- If you're about to get on a plane and you use Gmail it will let you know
when you need to leave where you are, also will tell you if the plane is late

\- Daily weather updates

\- It's picked up the stocks I have from my google searches and shows me them

\- The time to get home from work is great if you've got google traffic
monitoring, it can let you know where a crash is and suggest another route

------
joesmo
\- Four clicks to quit Hangouts.

\- No ability to delete more than one conversation at once.

\- Hangouts receives SMS even without permission.

These are all the mistakes Google consciously built into the app. I'm amazed
it has as high of a rating as it does already. Then again, one needs a Google+
account to rate anything on the Play Store, so the ratings are far from
unbiased and certainly not representative.

~~~
kyrra
The android upgrade that allowed hangouts to handle SMS asked you if you
wanted it to handle your SMS. I said no and it never took it over for me.

~~~
lloeki
Also, Android Settings -> More -> Default SMS app. Also reachable via Hangouts
app menu.

------
zmmmmm
This is what happens when you allow your interests to deviate from those of
your users. Companies tell themselves a sweet lie that there's a common ground
- people will love G+, G+ is great for Google, it all just happens to be a
beautiful marriage. Herd them there and everyone is happy, even if there's a
little initial resistance. But it's a terrible lie.

The simplicity of Talk was a huge feature. I still have not upgraded to
Hangouts on my tablet. Frankly, I just don't understand what the hell G+
really is. It has so many features, so many facets, it's like a giant ball of
wool that I don't know how to unravel. But it's not so much that _I_ can't
unravel it (I know I could if I spent the effort) - but I know I can't expect
_others_ to do that. Telling someone to join G+ implies so much possibly more
than just a chat service, which is what we actually want. Even if they are
already members, I might end up seeing who all their friends and relationships
are, their photos, god knows what else. I don't want any of that. Telling them
to use Hangouts and not join G+ is another giant ball of weirdness. It's too
much, it's too complex.

So I've gone from recommending everyone use GTalk to trying to find something
simpler that _just works_ and just does the single thing I want. ie., exactly
what Talk used to be.

------
MAGZine
>"It is slow. Messages are delivered after a delay and there is no way to see
who is online in my contact list and who is not. I ended up disabling it," he
said. Sharma and all of his colleagues then switched to WhatsApp. The app is
not only simpler to use and is much faster but also allowed Sharma to create a
specific group that he can use for group discussion with his colleague.

Wait, what? WhatsApp's "last seen" feature is hardly an indication of who's
online, and Hangouts allows for group chats...

Are we sure that the backend behind Hangouts is much different from Talk? I
suspect not, but there must be something causing all of the complaints of
slow/poor delivery. Bad HCI/UX?

~~~
tlear
I actually suspect that backends are very different between all of the major
messaging solutions. Whatsapp used to be absolutely terrible when it really
started growing. I know quite a few people who dumped it then but came back
about a year after

------
higherpurpose
I've never liked Hangouts. It was a very poorly done, poorly thought out and
unfinished app that runs very slow on my old phone. That's why to this day I
keep using Talk. The Gmail version of Hangouts hasn't been any better, and
I've kept using Talk there too as long as I could, until there was that big
privacy bug sending people's messages to other people, and I decided to switch
to Hangouts. But wouldn't have done it otherwise.

There's also the privacy issues. Google keeps refusing to provide proper
privacy for communications that are really supposed to be private, and should
be none of their damn business, data mining or not.

I've said it before, as soon as there are privacy-friendly alternatives to
Google's app that look good and not like they were designed in 1999 user-
hostile, I'll move away from their services. I'm already planning on
recommending everyone I know to use TextSecure/Whisper, and I'll do the same
as soon as a good DarkMail-based (ugh, yes I cringe at the name, too) client
is available (and if the protocol doesn't turn out to be snake oil, of
course).

Google should learn from what happened to MtGox, or I could even push the
analogy with the recent mass protests/revolutions - if you keep people
frustrated long enough and aren't answering to their concerns, they are going
to _dump you_ like there's no tomorrow, in a mass-exodus once there's a really
good alternative or your latest blunder is so big they can't take it anymore.

Also, whether it's Google+ or Hangouts, Google has gained a bad habit of
thinking that if they "own" a platform, they can push whatever crap they want
at the users, and _force_ them into using it - and they'll gain market share
in that market like magic!

Wrong. What they'll get is at best very little engagement with their app or
service, and a lot of pissed off users in the process, that _weren 't_ pissed
off with Google's other services before, but now are.

------
josteink
Google Hangouts is a terrible evolution of what used to be a nice, clean and
standards-based service. The reason I stopped using and advocating Gtalk was
Hangouts.

Unfortunately, most of Google's products are taking the hangouts route:
bloated, messy UI, no clear conceptual model and shiny over functional.

I don't get it, but I wont put up with it either. I've migrated most my data
and services from Google to other places.

------
rachellaw
I use Hangouts because of work, but otherwise it's clunky and really bad UI.

A lot of people talk about EU using WhatsApp, but it's a huge hit in Asia too.
My mom is on it, so are her colleagues (we're talking 50+ year olds here)
which is very different from FB or twitter adoption. WhatsApp made it simple
enough for a very broad audience-range to use

For now FB messenger is reasonably useful messaging service. It's not perfect
and I hate HATE their new update (with the round floating avatars) but it's
still marginally less annoying than G+

------
paulgb
> But in a bid to take on the likes of WhatsApp, Google replaced Talk with
> Hangouts in May 2013.

Seems to me it was more of a bid to force people onto Google Plus. It's a
shame, Google has been chasing Facebook for social and gaining no traction
(Buzz, Wave, Plus) and in the process gave up the chance to own messaging. It
may as well be 2004 for all messaging has evolved over the last decade.

~~~
mentaat
so you are still one of those guys who think nobody uses g+ or hasn't gotten
"traction". publicly stating your delusions is kinda embarrassing, no?

~~~
Zikes
It's still a very niche platform that very few people use as a Facebook
equivalent sharing and personal status system. Anecdotally hardly anyone in my
personal life uses it, and that's no delusion.

~~~
mentaat
> Anecdotally hardly anyone in my personal life uses it

you should google "inductive fallacy".

i've heard exactly the same "arguments" against twitter and whatsapp from
people who either echo views of other people or just haven't made an effort to
use the product.

when you start engaging on these platforms you realize they are thriving -
maybe not exactly the way you thought they would coming from the fb land.

~~~
Zikes
And you should google "fallacy fallacy".

I intentionally said "anecdotally" because I knew full well it was
inadmissable as a representative of the whole. But the point remains that
nobody else in my life uses it as a social media platform at nearly the same
scale they use Facebook, and when it comes to social media that's the only
thing that matters to me.

------
alexeisadeski3
Thinking back to the Google Talk glory days makes me so sad...

~~~
intortus
My phone now vibrates five minutes after anyone chats with me. I miss being
able to have only on-screen notifications, and having them be timely.

------
antirez
Whatsapp is probably best seen from a more general point of view. When
Hangouts was still non existing or in its infancy I remember in Italy
everybody was using Whatsapp already, the app remained in the top general
chart of the iTunes App Store for maybe two years if not more. I bet most
Europe was like that, but probably in the US the service never managed to get
very popular until recently.

------
livejamie
Am I the only one who likes Google Hangouts? I especially think it's the best
videoconferencing solution on the internet.

~~~
pgm8705
I like it too. I don't understand all the problems people have. I use it 24-7
communicating with a large group of friends who at any given time are on
android, iOS or desktop. No problems ever. The one thing missing for me is
sending video and audio in a chat. The chrome extension on mac can be a little
buggy, but that is about it.

------
lettergram
It amazes me, Google emphasizes sleek design, and ease of use. Yet, they seem
to forget the old adage,

"Write programs that do one thing and do it well."

That simply adage pretty much sums up why Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram are
successful and the Google Hangouts, Plus, etc. are failures.

------
admiraltbags
Funny thing about hangouts and SMS merge is that you can get away on a bill
cycle or two of "texting" overdrafts by claiming stupidity to the whole merger
things (which in itself is so damn stupid). What really annoys the shit out of
though is that you can't text people from your contact list without taping all
kinds of shit, it's really the worst UI of recent I've ever experienced and
makes me hate google.

------
diminish
finally a lot of sensible comments on the hangout disaster, the G imposed on
us. gtalk was a pretty acceptable im, it was near instant and acceptable.
hangout replaced it, killing a hundred small features and killing instant part
of it. i had trained all my family on gtalk, we just expected audio, and video
to get better. . hangout came with extremely delayed messaging and all kind of
bloated features....

------
mbesto
WhatsApp's greatest strength is that it's username is tied to your mobile
phone number. To date, the is the only truly global identifiable standard for
identity. Is there variation? Sure, but not as much as confusion with
duplicate names, languages, standardization of names, etc. IMO this is the
only reason WhatsApp won over Hangouts/ICQ/IRC/AIM/etc.

------
inthewoods
My issue with Hangouts is that on my computer the video slows my computer to a
crawl.

But I don't really get why people in the US (I get outside the US) are using
these apps vs. just SMS - sure, some additional functionality but everyone has
SMS. So why would I use Whatsapp or Telegram where I have to get people I know
to use it?

