RIP Google Hangouts, Google’s Last and Best Chance to Compete with iMessage

Today, November 1, 2022, Google Hangouts must die. The phone app has been disconnecting people from the service since July, but the last remnants of the Hangouts web app will be closed today. Hangouts was – for a short period of time – Google’s best, most ambitious and most popular messaging app, but after 5 billion downloads, Google is moving on. Hangouts’ closest cousin, Google Chat, should already automatically import all your messages and contacts, but the new service is a faint shadow of Hangouts’ original plan.

Once upon a time, Google tried to fix this. Messaging was supposed to have a real home at Google, and that home was to be (last dramatic thunderclap) Google+. Back in 2011, then-Google CEO Larry Page decided that social media was the future and rolled out the Google+ project across the company. The head of G+ was given the title of “Senior Vice President,”making him one of eight people who reported directly to Page, cementing Google+ as one of Google’s main pillars. This division was supposed to take full responsibility for messaging, and two years later it launched its own messaging project, Google+ Hangouts.

Codenamed “Project Babel”, Hangouts was tasked with getting it – unifying Google’s messenger portfolio. At the time, Google had four messaging apps: Google+ Messenger, Google Talk, an Android SMS app, and Google Voice. Hangouts launched in 2013 and integrated SMS by the end of the year. By 2014, the app was fully operational and included Hangouts, SMS, and Google Voice messages in one app, accessible from your phone or anywhere on the web. With the release of Android 4.4 in 2013, there was no separate Android SMS app. Hangouts was the only default SMS option.

Google created their iMessage clone and it was an incredible service. All your communication was available from one messaging app in one easy to use interface. Google also had tangible advantages over iMessage due to its wide cross-platform compatibility. Hangouts has been on Android, iOS, the web, and within Gmail. This meant that the service natively ran on phones, watches, cars, tablets, web browsers, and even Google Glass. Google would probably have a decent messaging foothold today if it just kept updating and investing in Hangouts.

However, the Hangout house was already falling apart in 2014. Amid complaints that Google+ was a “ghost town”, knives came out in favor of the service. Google+ senior vice president and driving force behind the project, Vic Gundotra, left Google, and on the same day, reports surfaced that Google+ resources would be drastically reduced and Google-wide forced integration of G+ would end. Hangouts was stuck in a dying division, and while some projects like Google+ Photos managed to hit a stable landing spot, Hangouts didn’t, and by 2015 you were regularly getting complaints from clients about the project being underfunded.

The other “problem”with Hangouts is that it was a blow to the carriers. The combination of SMS and messaging services in one application did not please the telecom operators. They wanted something SMS-centric and SMS-only so that users wouldn’t be tempted not to use the carrier’s product. Google has given up and introduced Google Offline Messages in the next release of Android. Lacking organization and fortitude, Google Hangouts only lasted about a year as Google’s premier universal messaging service. Hangouts continued to evolve as an abandoned zombie product that was still better than the many new messaging services that Google would release later, and today it was finally shut down.