All Workspace customers were migrated to Google Chat earlier this year. Google announced today that classic Hangouts is going away for free users in October and laid out the migration plans to Chat.
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Google Talk, the instant messaging service from 2005 that’s been in limbo for years, is being shut down permanently this week.
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Google already lets you create and assign tasks in Google Chat Spaces, and the integration is now going deeper with the ability to create a personal task from any message.
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Google is bringing its bright red warning banners to Chat in order to guard against invites that contain potential phishing and malware links.
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A small tweak rolling out to Google Chat brings back the idle status (orange bubble) that was originally found in Google Talk, which was colloquially referred to as Gchat.
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While Google Chat does a great deal to modernize Hangouts, some similarities do remain. One of the more fun overlaps is easter eggs — appropriately — with all of the classic slash commands continuing to work in Google Chat.
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As previewed last month, Google Chat on iOS will let you set which contacts can reach you in Focus mode. This applies to the dedicated Chat app and the integrated experience available in Gmail.
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Alongside a slew of Meet announcements, Google Voice is getting a pair of new capabilities, most notably call recording, for enterprise subscribers. Google also previewed what’s coming to Spaces this year.
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As classic Hangouts is set to go away for Workspace customers, Google continues to update Chat and Spaces with more capabilities. A small tweak sees Gmail for Android introduce new status bar icons that help differentiate notifications from Google Chat and Spaces.
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Following Gmail at the start of this year, Google Drive is the latest iOS app to get new work-focused widgets, while there are also updates for Translate and Chat on iOS in the coming weeks.
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Google is working to make Spaces in Chat more versatile and feature rich. It will eventually replace Currents, and Google is now rolling out features like setting Space Managers and guidelines.
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Google was originally supposed to start the migration away from classic Hangouts to Chat in October 2019 for Workspace (previously G Suite) users. That switch was delayed, and the multi-stage plan did not start until June 2020. The final phase is now set for late March.
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Google+ shut down in April of 2020 as a social network for consumers, but the product was kept around for businesses that wanted an internal tool to communicate with employees in a post/stream-like manner. Citing low usage, Google is shutting down Currents and replacing it with Spaces in the new integrated Gmail/Chat.
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Google Chat, the company’s alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams — not to be confused with the web app for its RCS and SMS messaging app on Android — is rolling out an overdue feature to its web app. Starting today, Google Chat is making it easier to add rich text formatting to your messages on the web.
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Google is making a text box/compose field tweak to the Chat mobile and web apps that sees the Workspace communication service look more like the consumer Messages client for SMS/RCS.
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Back in September, Google previewed how Chat will let you make one-on-one Meet calls without having to use URLs. Similar to classic Hangouts, this feature is now rolling out in the version of Google Chat inside Gmail.
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Google is rolling out a simple but rather useful ability to “mark as unread” in Chat. This capability is already found on competing team messaging solutions, and doubles as a light reminder system.
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Cloud Next is Google Cloud’s annual conference for enterprise customers and developers, and this year’s virtual edition is kicking off later today at 9 a.m. PT. Google Workspace announcements at Cloud Next ‘21 are primarily centered on security.
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Back in June, with the announcement that Workspace is available “for everyone,” Google revealed that “Rooms” in Chat would soon be renamed to “Spaces” and gain a slew of new features. That rebrand is now underway.
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Google continues to add more features to Chat as it becomes available for more and more people ahead of the classic Hangouts depreciation. The Google Chat web app is now integrating Tenor GIF search.
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The standalone Google Chat PWA and website are getting a straightforward dark theme to match the Android and iOS clients.
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The process of shutting down classic Hangouts for Workspace users is almost complete, as Google this week enables the integrated Gmail with Chat and Rooms for even more paid accounts.
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Last year, Google Chat added support for talking with users outside their company, thus expanding from being just an internal team communication tool. Google Workspace admins are now getting the ability to limit that external Chat access.
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With Chat serving as a key part of the integrated Gmail experience, Google lets users quickly specify their activity status. In addition to the existing availability options, you’re now able to set a custom status in Gmail and Chat on the web.
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