Google Hangouts - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Google Hangouts has become quite the topic of controversy in the last few days since its release, and following the number of comments and personal takes on the application, I've managed to summarise the features or non-features into three categories .... The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ....

The Good

1. Cross platform messaging
2. Multi person video calling
3. Avatar watermarks show when a message is read, when a person is typing, and when a person is in and out of a hangout
4. Cloud saved history (text via gmail and pictures via Google+)
5. Sleek & Simplified Google UI
6. Connect with others by their Google email account, their Google+ account or phone number registered at first use

The Bad

1. Global app status indicator only available for web to web individuals via a green underline. Give this green indicator to all platforms, Google!
2. Messy contacts list - confusion between frequent contacts, Google+ contacts & Google contacts - UX needs to be improved here
3.  No way to tell which of my contacts are using hangouts and who are not - ie will my messages be delivered using the client proprietary method or by SMS?
4. Can't reshare shared pics
5. Can't zoom in on pics
6. Lacks sms & voice integration
7. Lacks other media sharing (video clips, audio clips, location info, contact info)
8.  Lacks group ownership and control of adding new people to a hangout
9. Lacks stickers
10. No support for Windows and BlackBerry

The Ugly

One of the most commented "deficiencies" around hangouts are the lack of proper status indicators.

The avatar watermark does a good job at indicating when someone is in a particular hangout or not on all platforms, but when it comes to global indicators (ie a status showing when someone is active in the app as a whole), this only exists for WEB to WEB messaging by an underline indicator. Looking into the interaction between platforms may just show evidence for Google's rationale:


MOBILE TO MOBILE
• No global app status indicator exists - does not need global indicators, as delivery between mobile devices is expected to be live at all times (either through the proprietary method for hangout users or SMS for non hangout users) via mobile notifications, similar to the way that Whatsapp and iMessage works.

WEB TO MOBILE
• No global app status indicator exists - does not need global indicators, as delivery to mobile devices is expected to be live at all times via mobile notifications, similar to the way that SMS, WhatsApp and iMessage works

MOBILE TO WEB (assuming hangout on mobile is used by the receiver)
• No global app status indicator exists - does not need global indicators, as messages from a mobile device will either be delivered to the web client of the recipient otherwise it will revert to MOBILE TO MOBILE via the proprietary protocol for immediate delivery.

WEB TO WEB (assuming hangout on mobile is used by the receiver)
• No global app status indicator exists - does not need global indicators, as messages from a mobile device will either be delivered to the web client of the recipient otherwise it will revert to WEB TO MOBILE via the proprietary protocol for immediate delivery.

MOBILE TO WEB (assuming hangout on mobile is not used by the receiver)
• No global app status indicator exists - does not need global indicators, as messages from a mobile device will either be delivered to the web client of the recipient otherwise it will revert to MOBILE TO MOBILE via SMS for immediate delivery.

WEB TO WEB (assuming hangout on mobile is not used by the receiver)
• Global App Status Indicator exists in the form of a green line under the profile pic - this status is needed here ... if someone who is not online is messaged (and the sender does not know this), a message sent cannot be considered delivered immediately as the receiver may be away from the computer, on snooze, or not logged in with no other alternative for immediate delivery. Having said all that, I'm interested to know why, if not online, the app wouldn't just revert to WEB TO MOBILE using SMS. This would eliminate the need for the green line, unless the reverting to SMS originating at Web is not possible.

All references made to SMS above speaks to the intention of the design when SMS is implemented.

The problem with all of this is that it is confusing, and too much for users of Hangouts to learn. To eliminate confusion and the need to understand the different approaches, Global App Statuses should be implemented across ALL platforms regardless whether it is relevant or not, or removed from ALL platforms (although this could cause even further outcry).

Google Hangouts

We've been waiting and waiting, and been through the varying ups and downs of Babble and Babel, but now finally the re imagined Google talk / Google hangouts is here.

It's here and it definitely looks and feels like Google, following the simplistic approach with elegant animations.

The app definitely achieves the set goal of unifying most of the current Google communication services. Google talk, Google+ messenger and Google hangouts have all been meshed together in a very elegant way to produce Hangouts.

Hangouts allows for one-on-one text messaging, group messaging, picture sharing within these (by camera or existing albums), video hangouts with up to 10 participants, a slew of emoji icons, a preserved history within the hangout, great little animations when a participant of a hangout is typing, and of course .. multi platform compatibility. Multi platform compatibility allows switching between devices and continuing a session seamlessly.

A hangout can be created with any individual based on their email address registered to the app, their phone number registered to the app, or via their name or circle name if they are a Google+ user.

It really is a great app, and feels sleek, clean and simple as Google's apps are known to be.

Something worth mentioning is that you don't need to be a Google+ user to use hangouts, although to benefit from the media richness like picture sharing and video conferencing, you will. Something else that struck my attention was that the app registers against the user's phone number .... This makes me wonder if individuals without both a Google and Google+ account can use hangouts based purely on their phone number. This is a feature I haven't had the pleasure to test yet. If this is the case, then I see great potential for hangouts as a SMS replacement for android in the future. More on that below.

So Google has done a great job in implementing the functions that hangout currently has, but to be competitive in this newly aggressive IM space, the features that it has is not enough.

A few things that Google Hangouts needs

1. Better status indicators on who are hangout users and who are not. In the screen to create a new hangout, I'd love to see better indication as to who are hangout users, and who are not. At the moment, I could end up sending a message to someone who is not a hangout user, and this will just send an invite to that user to join the hangout app. Hopefully in the future, this will be addressed by sending the intended message by SMS instead, but I'd still like to see the distinction between hangouts users and non-hangouts (therefore SMS) users.

2. SMS / MMS integration. So with iMessage and Facebook messenger integrating SMS/MMS into their own IM software, you'd expect Google as a major competitor of both, to have this too. Well, they don't, but there has already been confirmation from inside Google that sms integration is coming soon.

3. Video clip sharing, audio clip sharing, location info sharing, contact info sharing. If I'd have to wager a guess here, I'd say that the reason for the absence of these features is because Google hasn't decided the best model to store this info. With picture sharing, Google has used their Google+ platform as the storage base. Google+ does not store shared video, audio, location info nor contact info, so sharing this info requires a new sharing storage model. Maybe we can look forward to audio, video etc storage on Google+ in the near future.

4. Google voice integration. So it is great that we can video conference via a video hangout, but what if we just want to voice conference, or even just a one on one voice call? Google has suggested that Google voice will integrate in the future, so let's hold our thumbs for this.

All of these are not far fetched ideas and unlikely to be too hard to implement pretty soon (short of maybe point 3).

I really love the look and feel, and unification of this. This really made hangouts much more accessible across platforms. A great start to IM dominance, but still a way to go.

Grab the hangout app for android here, and for iOS here. A version for Chrome OS can be found in the Chrome web store.