The American company will eliminate Google Duo in favor of Google Meet in the coming months. And thus hopes to finally clarify its offer in terms of messaging.
Soon the end for Google Duo. In a press release, Google has just formalized the end of its videoconferencing tool inaugurated in 2016. Aficionados (they are rather rare…) of Google Duo can be reassured however: they will not lose access to their favorite software. Initially, Google Duo will remain available on the Play Store. But it will however benefit from new functions, all inherited from Google Meet, Google’s other videoconferencing software. Meet has experienced, with the Covid crisis, an explosion in the number of its users… unlike Duo, whose use has remained more confidential.
As a reminder, Google Duo is a particularly simple videoconferencing application, whose identification is based on your telephone number or your email address. And despite its name, Google has upgraded it for group calls: the software is able to manage up to 32 people simultaneously. Meet is much more complete: also adapted to the needs of professionals, it also allows you to plan meetings, offers an integrated chat section, allows you to share documents or your screen… and offers meetings for up to 100 people. It requires a Google account, however.
Finally a clarification
Duo will therefore take advantage of all of these functions in the coming weeks, while retaining its specificities, in particular the possibility of using it without a Google account. A little later this year, the application will be “melted” into Google Meet, which will become the American giant’s only video service.
One would be tempted to wonder why Google did not change its strategy for messaging applications earlier, as it has maintained a certain mess for years. We knew since 2020 that this project was in the cards and its formalization two years later is a perfect testimony to this jumble. We have known, sometimes in parallel, applications as diverse as Talk, Hangouts, Chat, Allo, Duo, Meet… Google seems to have tried everything to find the right formula, without ever managing to offer a product capable of competing with the leaders of the sector such as WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram.
By acknowledging that Meet is now its only messaging solution, Google is finally trying to clarify things. It was time !
Source :
Google