<story><title>Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon</title><url>https://9to5google.com/2018/12/05/google-allo-shutting-down/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>GuiA</author><text>Not that I’m defending Allo, but I don’t know how useful your distinction is. What is an earnest product then?&lt;p&gt;Any product released by a company that has bills to pay is released to “get market share”.</text></item><item><author>whitepoplar</author><text>People can smell when a product isn&amp;#x27;t earnest. From the beginning, Allo smelled like a directive by a Google VP to &amp;quot;get messaging market share.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>woodruffw</author><text>Google dumped an &lt;i&gt;incredible&lt;/i&gt; amount of money into Allo&amp;#x27;s marketing at my (large state) university -- they plastered many buildings with full-length advertisements, filled all of the local businesses with pamphlets, and even drove students around campus in weird little (electric?) buggies[1].&lt;p&gt;Despite all that, I don&amp;#x27;t think I know anybody who installed (much less regularly used) Allo.&lt;p&gt;Edit: They also bought Snapchat filters that were geofenced to the campus.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=allo+campus+car&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=allo+campus+car&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toast0</author><text>Google was clearly not strategically invested in Allo; as it was one of at least five messaging products? Duo, Allo, Hangouts, SMS app, the carrier RCS BS. As a consumer, when i see that, I know Google isn&amp;#x27;t going to continue doing all of those in two to three years, but I don&amp;#x27;t know which one they&amp;#x27;re going to keep, and it&amp;#x27;s not worth my social capital to get enough of my friends onboard to try it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Source: Google Allo will be officially shut down soon</title><url>https://9to5google.com/2018/12/05/google-allo-shutting-down/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>GuiA</author><text>Not that I’m defending Allo, but I don’t know how useful your distinction is. What is an earnest product then?&lt;p&gt;Any product released by a company that has bills to pay is released to “get market share”.</text></item><item><author>whitepoplar</author><text>People can smell when a product isn&amp;#x27;t earnest. From the beginning, Allo smelled like a directive by a Google VP to &amp;quot;get messaging market share.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>woodruffw</author><text>Google dumped an &lt;i&gt;incredible&lt;/i&gt; amount of money into Allo&amp;#x27;s marketing at my (large state) university -- they plastered many buildings with full-length advertisements, filled all of the local businesses with pamphlets, and even drove students around campus in weird little (electric?) buggies[1].&lt;p&gt;Despite all that, I don&amp;#x27;t think I know anybody who installed (much less regularly used) Allo.&lt;p&gt;Edit: They also bought Snapchat filters that were geofenced to the campus.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=allo+campus+car&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=allo+campus+car&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iainmerrick</author><text>I think they mean it was a “me too” product. “Everybody’s using their messaging app. That should be us! Let’s make a new messaging app and take over that market.”&lt;p&gt;As opposed to a really new and innovative product (e.g. the iPhone) or at least one that’s a notable improvement over existing similar ones (Gmail).&lt;p&gt;It’s a spectrum rather than a hard and fast distinction, of course.</text></comment>