ADIUM GOOGLE TALK PLUS

Plus none of them had some of the features I’d want if I had my pick of service. If so, congrats! But I don’t have more than one or two contacts on any of those platforms, so none of them had an advantage on the network effect.

What are our current options that aren’t Hangouts? You and your gang may already be using something like Facebook Messenger or Slack or Skype or WhatsApp and be all set. But hey, maybe this Talk-to-Hangouts shift is the push you need to take on this network effect and have a look around at alternative IM services (it was for me). Plus when they get there, you might be the only contact they have on the new service.Īll this to say this is an uphill battle. And none allow you to easily message someone using Hangouts.įurthermore, considering that I don’t imagine my friends will abandon gmail anytime soon, and that when they’re automatically rolled over, Hangouts will still work in their gmail browser tab, to ask friends to “switch” is effectively to ask them to set up and be on a second (if not third) messaging service. Most of the alternatives to Google Talk/Hangouts I talk about below don’t have any external benefit to installing on beyond that chat client itself (which I think, other things equal, is a good thing). Notably, I don’t remember needing to be encouraged to switch to gchat, nor do I remember having to ask others to switch. So if you’re like me, you’ve only switched instant messengers once– and it was to a service that came with a gmail email address (if you’ve also used Facebook Messenger or Twitter DMs a lot, those are obviously other examples of messengers that came bundled with something else entirely).

My first instant messenger was AIM, and then sometime early in college everyone seemed to just switch to gchat, I assume because we had soon emailed each others’ gmail addresses and that added them to our lists. Isn't gchat just becoming hangouts which is like basically the same thing- Taylor Lorenz May 26, 2017 (Hell, maybe you’re already using a different service that you like.) The problem here isn’t as simple as just downloading a new instant messaging app barring interoperability with Hangouts (lol), you’ve got to get at least some of your friends to switch too. Or maybe they’ll have to keep using Hangouts for work anyway. Of course even if you agree with that sentiment, most of your friends may just roll on over to Hangouts and not even notice. I think we deserve a better instant messenger in 2017. And of course niceties I’ve gotten used to on Slack like inline GIFs, furled-out URLs and tweets, easy :emojis:, and editable messages aren’t there. From my experience neither allows for easy file transfers or reliable group chat, not to mention mobile access (especially for iOS) or video calling. Hangouts feels uglier, and I understand that it’s a bit more restrictive with regard to third-party applications like Adium and Pidgin, though I could be wrong– Google’s blog post says, “Third-party XMPP clients will continue to work with Hangouts for 1-on-1 chats,” but continues, “XMPP federation with third-party services providers will no longer be supported starting June 26.” It’s not a huge shift, but it doesn’t feel great to be rolled over to something automatically.Īnd all that aside, more broadly, both gchat and Hangouts are pretty shitty instant messaging services. I think I agree with Emerson in my preference for gchat over Hangouts. (Other tech sites like Select All just reported it straight.)

was minimalist, discreet, and intimate– values that are hard to come by in an age where everything must be scalable, social, and platform-ized. It was, and still is, an aggressively worse form of Google+, the company’s failed social platform…. Hangouts was slow, heavy, and intrusive. For users that preferred the Google Talk look, there is a Dense Roster setting in Hangouts that provides a similar experience.Įxactly 3 weeks until Gchats are ruined forever /xvkPHZtrD6- Justin Green June 5, 2017 After June 26, users will be automatically transitioned to Hangouts, unless contractual commitments apply. Talk users within Gmail will receive a prompt in the next few weeks, inviting them to switch to Hangouts. As some of you may know, Google is killing gchat (aka Google Talk) and moving users to Hangouts after June 26th.

Adium google talk