<story><title>Google Hangouts Chat</title><url>https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/move-projects-forward-one-placehangouts-chat-now-available/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JorgeGT</author><text>But now you can have &lt;i&gt;five&lt;/i&gt; Google IM apps in your phone! Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Hangouts meet, Hangouts chat... am I missing any? Definitely Franz Kafka is alive and well as Google&amp;#x27;s messaging PM.</text></item><item><author>FreakyT</author><text>I already find Google&amp;#x27;s handling of their chat software utterly nonsensical, but this one arguably takes the cake for ridiculousness, considering they &lt;i&gt;already have&lt;/i&gt; a chat product called &amp;quot;Hangouts&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;There is definitely no chance of branding confusion there.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>miah_</author><text>It feels like they are doing A&amp;#x2F;B testing by releasing entirely different products rather than small changes within existing products. I wish they&amp;#x27;d pick a name and iterate on features on one product that I can invest into using for a long time (like Gmail).</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Hangouts Chat</title><url>https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/move-projects-forward-one-placehangouts-chat-now-available/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JorgeGT</author><text>But now you can have &lt;i&gt;five&lt;/i&gt; Google IM apps in your phone! Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Hangouts meet, Hangouts chat... am I missing any? Definitely Franz Kafka is alive and well as Google&amp;#x27;s messaging PM.</text></item><item><author>FreakyT</author><text>I already find Google&amp;#x27;s handling of their chat software utterly nonsensical, but this one arguably takes the cake for ridiculousness, considering they &lt;i&gt;already have&lt;/i&gt; a chat product called &amp;quot;Hangouts&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;There is definitely no chance of branding confusion there.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adamrezich</author><text>I had Google Voice before I had an Android phone. A big selling point of Android to me early on, especially stock Android phones like the Nexus One, was how, being a Google product, it would integrate with my SMS and phone apps, and provide a unified experience. Since then, they&amp;#x27;ve released so many chat apps, most with SMS integration, that it&amp;#x27;s just frustratingly confusing and it makes me think less of the entire platform.&lt;p&gt;So I get they wanted to make a Slack competitor... why not make this new app FINALLY also double as the One True Google Chat App? Surely that would be good for adoption and stuff, plus it would finally solve their &amp;quot;too many chat apps&amp;quot; problem once and for all...</text></comment>