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Google Hangouts now competes with Slack, Skype
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Hangouts Chat wraps its focus around team messaging and will offer rooms, similar to Slack. Unlike Slack, Hangouts Chat will offer threaded conversations. (Shutterstock/File)
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t Thursday's Cloud Next Keynote conference, Google has announced that it will be splitting its Hangout feature into two. What used to be a place for messages and voice and video calls will now be for Hangouts, which is a Skype-like video and audio communication service.
Hangouts Chat wraps its focus around team messaging and will offer rooms, similar to Slack. Unlike Slack, Hangouts Chat will offer threaded conversations.
Google’s director of product management for Drive Scott Johnston told TechCrunch that threaded conversations were the primary reason this update took so long. “We learned a lot from threading Gmail. But it’s also a constant tuning because everyone is just so trained in iMessage. That makes sense for lightweight chats, but when you need to be able to drill in, it breaks down.”
As expected, Google’s services are integrated into Hangouts. For example, if a file from Google Drive is shared with a room, all the members of the room will be able to access it automatically. Google will also be allowing developers to add bots to the program, like those from Asana, Box, Zendesk and ProsperWork.
Read also: You can now save and share favorite places on Google Maps
Hangouts Meet, on the other hand, is working to simplify meetings. The idea is that with one click, you will be in your meeting, be it through audio or video. “One of the biggest conversations we are having with out G Suite customers about Hangouts meetings is how people are spending so much time getting into the meetings,” Johnston said. “We’re a big supporter of automating the full meeting life cycle from agenda to follow-ups. But meeting value today is destroyed by time-to-start. It takes so long to simply get started.”
Some of the new features in Hangouts Meet include a 30-person maximum on each meeting, as well as the ability to record. According to TechCrunch, every meeting through Meet will come with a dial-in number, which has a PIN code attached. So if you have the number, Google will handle the PIN for you.
Hangouts Chat is still only open to Google’s early access users, but Hangouts Meet is now available to all. (sul/kes)
