Google insists that messaging app Hangouts is in it for the long haul

Google’s messaging apps are in a state of flux at the moment.

Between GChats, Hangouts and the ecosystem’s newest additions, Allo and Duo, users aren’t exactly sure where the search giant’s loyalties lie.

When Allo and Duo were announced last September, Google also announced its intention to spin off its seemingly forgotten Hangouts platform into an enterprise product.

This further crystallizes our efforts around Allo and Duo for consumers and Hangouts for productivity/business users

— Amit Fulay (@amitfulay) March 9, 2017

Google recently provided more details by announcing that it would split of Hangouts into two products this past week; Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Meets is largely focused on joining meetings through video conferencing, while Chat prioritizes chat with projects, groups and threaded conversations, both with a focus on enterprise.

Not only did this mark the first product update to Hangouts in some time, it didn’t give people who use the platform to chat with friends much confidence that this functionality would be retained.

However, recent updates suggest that Hangouts consumer users may have nothing to worry about. The product head at Allo and Duo, Amit Fulay, confirmed that Hangouts for consumers “isn’t going anywhere” anytime soon, via a recent tweet.

it's not going anywhere

— Amit Fulay (@amitfulay) March 10, 2017

While this doesn’t provide much in the way of consolidation for Google’s convoluted messaging ecosystem, it does give Hangouts personal users some reassurance that the platform will continue to exist in some form.

Source: 9to5Google