Some rumours floating online indicated that Google Hangouts was reportedly on the verge of shutting down. However, Google spokesperson Scott Johnston has confirmed that Hangout users will automatically get migrated to other Google products with similar or better functionality such as Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet.
A lot of drama and tension erupted on Twitter as the month of December arrived. A reliable and popular reporting platform claimed Google Hangouts will be shutting down. Incidentally, the cross-platform internet-based chat app replaced Google Talk a few years ago. Although Scott Johnston vehemently denied any rumours, he added quite a few interesting bits of information about the platform’s future.
Hey @hallstephenj, I run Hangouts and this is pretty shoddy reporting. No decisions made about when Hangouts will be shut down. Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Your source is severely misinformed. You can do better.
— Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018
Google Hangouts Not Terminating, But Users Will Be Migrated To Other Parallel Products
Relying to the publication and the author of the article on Twitter, Scott noted that the report was poorly compiled. He added that the report left readers to draw unhealthy and incorrect conclusions. However, he did note that Google will eventually rechristen Google Hangouts as Hangouts Classic. In other words, Google appears to be re-categorizing the platform.
2/ So while that will result in the eventual shut down of Hangouts classic (as we now call it), it doesn't imply we are ending support for the use case supported by the product: messaging and meetings.
— Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018
Scott noted that Hangouts Classic will eventually shut down. However, users will have minimal to no impact as other products will completely support them. Google will migrate all Hangouts users to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. The names clearly imply the intended use of these separate but correlated platforms. Hangouts Chat allows messaging and chatting, while Hangouts Meet allows setting up Meetings and schedule interactions. Scott stressed that the migration process will be automatic and invisible to the end user.
4/ But this isn't just true with Google Apps, it is true across the market. Line supports both businesses and consumers. As does Facebook Messenger. Dropbox. Even Teams recently opened to consumers. I could go on.
— Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018
Google Hangouts or soon-to-be Hangouts Classic, offers the same basic functionalities. However, Google essentially stopped actively developing the platform quite some time back. Scott made it quite clear that not only corporate or enterprise users, but individuals too, regularly use such platforms.
He implied that Google is actively developing better solutions or alternatives. Scott also mentioned that several large enterprises have been opening up their platforms to individual use. He cited the examples of Microsoft Teams, a team collaboration platform Microsoft recently opened up for free usage with some limitations.
6/ But these are subjective points, and they are my products, so I'm strongly biased. In the end, neither you, nor I will make this judgement. Our users will. Everything else is just talk. /FIN
— Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018
Google Users Grumble About The Company Shuttering Good Products
The confusing news about Hangouts suddenly ending arrived quite near to Google’s decision to shutter ‘Inbox’, a versatile platform that several users claim is better than Gmail. The news brought out a lot of grudges against Google for abruptly altering products or even shuttering apps or platforms that several users appreciated and used frequently.
Us Google users were dreaming about this way long ago, but it was never fully developed. Still veeeeeeery patiently waiting. 😔 pic.twitter.com/RHW7WwxuKa
— Jozo Joe Zovko (@ZZFilm) December 1, 2018
At present, Google has several parallel products meant for personal and collaborative communication such as Google Duo, Allo, Hangouts, Messages, and more. Many users suggested Google should think of unifying platforms to offer a lot of features and functionalities, instead of separating the functions. They claim Google is making users use multiple Google products.
Still, many users are happy Google is finally paying active attention to the promising Google Hangouts platform. Given the active response by Scott, it is quite apparent that Google is not abandoning or terminating Google Hangouts. It is merely branching out the platform in separate but even more potent platforms that incidentally bear the parent name.
