Google’s video chat merger begins: Now there are two “Google Meet” apps

The merger of its two video chat apps is about to begin. The merger of the two code bases into the Duo app was announced in June. People will be able to see Duo's app and website branding swap over to Google Meet this week. The rebrands will arrive at different times for different people but the complete one should be finished by September.

There is a new name for the Duo app and the existing app is still there. That means that there are two new apps. The Meet app and the Duo app are referred to in the help article as "the updated Meet app" and "the updated Duo app." The "Google Meet" app will be put out to pasture one day, but it's just sticking around. Is everyone following that?

The Meet and Duo video services were built as a response to the more stable communication competition between the two companies. After Zoom's growth exploded in 2020 during the COVID-19 epidemic, it became a major project for Google Meet, a group business video chat application. During the initial months of the work-from- home era, Google Meet was locked behind a paywall, and while it eventually became as easy to use as Zoom, it was after it became ahousehold name.

The "companion app" Google Allo was created as a response to the growth of WhatsApp. Two years ago, the two companies got into a bidding war for the messaging service. The next two years saw the creation of a clone of the popular messaging service. The video chat in the app was not integrated into the Duo app. If you wanted, you could use a video chat service like Allo or Facebook'sWhatsApp, since they didn't have video chat at the time.

Duo built a one-to-one video chat system that worked well on unstable connections because Allo and Duo were originally focused on India. The new combined app will be based on that efficient video chat system and will include Meet's meeting linkFunctionality into Duo. The install base could be a factor. While Meet only has 100 million downloads on the Play Store, Google Duo has more than five billion downloads. The 100 million will have to switch on their own, but the 5 billion will be transitioned smoothly. In September, it will be hidden from app store searches. It will need to send a pop-up message to existing users of the old app to upgrade.

The move is happening because in 2020 there will be a single person in charge of all of the communication products of the company. That should mean a lot of things, including the addition of theAndroid phone app. There is only two years left on the messaging unification job after Soltero leaves. Nobody knows who is going to take over as the new head of messaging. The Meet and Duo merger is one of the things that is still happening. There will be one video app and three chat apps left.