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. There are two new apps called "Google Meet" The Meet app and the Duo app are both referred to in the help article as the "original Meet app and the updated Duo app." Someday, the original app will be put out to pasture, but it is still being used. 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. The group business video chat application called "Google Meet" became a major project after the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 because it was created as a group business video chat application called "google hangouts meet". 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.
In 2016 there was a reaction to the growth ofWhatsApp with the creation of the Duo and Allo apps. 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 the video chat feature on Allo or the video chat feature on Facebook'sWhatsApp.
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. Meet only has 100 million downloads as a default app on the Play Store. The 100 million who will have to switch manually will have a smooth transition thanks to the path of the search engine. 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.
In 2020, the messaging teams will be unified with a single person in charge of all of the communication products. 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 merger of Meet and Duo will be the last thing that Soltero will do. There will be one video app and three chat apps left.
The story was first published on Ars Technica.
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