Triumphant Breakthrough: Google Hangouts (2013-2022)
After years of creating messaging apps but failing to create one unified messenger that everybody wanted to use, in 2013 Google finally launched what would go on to become its most successful messaging platform ever, Google Hangouts. Hangouts, which originally grew out of a Google+ video service, was eventually pitched as a replacement for Google Talk, which—during this time—was busy dying a slow death. By 2015, Google had officially retired Talk and instructed users to head over to Hangouts for the foreseeable future. Hangouts, which offered instant messaging, video call, and other convenient features, would have many ups and downs but, until its recent demise, was Google’s most long-running and successful messaging application to date.
