Google is preparing to shut down Hangouts for consumers, though there’s controversy over when that will happen and what alternative existing users will be
Google is preparing to shut down Hangouts for consumers, though there’s controversy over when that will happen and what alternative existing users will be migrated to. The chat app was launched back in 2013, itself a replacement to three different messaging products which Google had been operating.
That included Google Talk, which was more focused on enterprise users, and Google+ Messenger, the service formerly known as Huddle. The Google+ Hangouts was also deprecated when Google Hangouts arrived, having been a video-focused service that was part of the ill-fated social network.
Since then, of course, Google has had a number of other messaging apps, and juggled them in somewhat confusing ways. Google Voice, for instance, began independently, then was integrated into Hangouts, before being split off again.
