It looks like Google Hangouts may soon finally get the chop. According to a report from 9to5Google, Google Hangouts is set to shut down for consumers at some point in 2020.
The news isn’t all that surprising. Google often gets ridiculed for its multitude of messaging apps, and the company recently announced that it would be turning its attention to Android Messages and integration with the new RCS “Chat” messaging standard. Not only that, but Google ceased development on Hangouts more than a year ago.
Given that Google has been bringing new features to other messaging apps, many customers have already moved away from Google Hangouts but there is still a loyal following of users who prefer to stick with the older service. Safe to say, if you have not already transitioned away from Google Hangouts, then you will want to do so at some point in 2019.
It’s important to note that not everything about Hangouts will disappear. The Hangouts brand will still live on in G Suite’s Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet services, which are targeted at businesses and aimed at those who might otherwise be interested in services like Slack.
Hopefully, this signals the start of a much more streamlined approach to messaging for Google. As mentioned, it has launched quite a few messaging services over the years, and many of them have fallen flat. After Hangouts, Google launched Allo — but considering Allo only allowed users to message other Allo users, it wasn’t really embraced.
Instead, Google is now embracing the new RCS, or Rich Communication Services, “chat” standard, which allows for things like group messages, larger file transfers, read receipts, and more. Safe to say, it’s a far superior standard to the older SMS standard, and should hopefully bring messaging — even cross-platform messaging — into 2018. Of course, there are companies that have not announced that they are going to use RCS. Namely, Apple has kept quiet on the new standard, likely because of the fact that it’s already considered a messaging champion thanks to iMessage. Hopefully, however, Apple will adopt RCS for cross-platform chats, in which Apple and Android users message with each other.
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