Would anything get you to use Google Chat with friends?

Abner Li | Nov 17 2023 - 2:00 pm PT

With Apple’s RCS for iPhone announcement, Google is undoubtedly moving full steam ahead on Messages and RCS as its consumer messaging app. It is inherently aligned with Android, which bodes well for continued development, and consistently gets a slew of new features.

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However, the company does have a whole other messaging service, though the boundaries between the two are clear. Google Chat is very much an enterprise Slack and Microsoft Teams competitor that benefits from Drive/Docs/Meet integration and other third-party tools.

That said, it is entirely free to use for anybody with a personal Gmail Account and checks all the boxes for 1:1 and group messaging before getting into larger Spaces.

Chat is about to add a slew of features, including the new icon that signals its Google nature and homescreen to streamline navigation. On the enterprise AI front, Duet will be able to summarize missed conversations, but having that apply for personal threads should be more than possible down the road.

In theory, an email address-based identity system for instant messaging is more portable than the phone number that most other services are based on. It can also provide an increased sense of anonymity.

Like Google Talk in the late 2000s to early 2010s, Google Chat’s key advantage should be how it is built into Gmail on the web and (more recently) mobile. All you need is the Gmail app/website that most people already have installed/open for email to start messaging and receiving notifications. If you want a more dedicated experience, you can disable the integration and download a standalone app (Android and iOS).

On paper, Google Chat is entirely capable of being anybody’s primary messaging service with a low barrier to entry and complete feature set. I’d say one contributing factor to its lack of use is modern Google — outside of YouTube — not having any sort of social cachet. People just don’t associate Chat, if they’re even aware of its existence out of enterprise usage, with social or messaging.
I’m not advocating that Google should deviate from RCS/Messages, but it seems somewhat wasteful that Google has all the groundwork in place and won’t really advertise — except for one small occasion earlier this year – it.

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Top comment by Arthur

Liked by 13 people

If the defaults are what most people use (iMessage for iPhones and Google Messages for Pixels and Galaxy devices) and both of these offer majority if not everything people care about, i.e. typing indicator, read receipts, message reactions, full end to end encryption, what could Chats or any other app like it offer to get people to change their habits?

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