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Google Releases Spaces Group-Sharing App On Android, iOS, and Desktop (blogspot.com)
Google on Monday released Spaces, an app that is designed to make it easier to share links, videos and other things from the Web in group conversations. The app, which has been in private beta for a few months, is available for Android, iOS, desktop and mobile web. Google explains: With Spaces, it's simple to find and share articles, videos and images without leaving the app, since Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome come built in. When someone shares something new to a space, the conversational view lets you see what the group is talking about without missing a beat. And if you ever want to find something that was shared earlier -- articles, videos, comments or even images -- a quick search lets you pull it up in a snap.
I mean, really.
I'm so fed up with all this balkanized bullshit, all these companies hoping that they will be the next big thing and thus capturing the market.
Facebook failed with their messenger bullshit, forcing them to buy what'sapp in order to keep their data siphon going. Google hasn't yet figured out that people don't want to be locked in and are still trying. I'm betting that they will probably buy up snapchat in order to get access to that user base.
Blackberry had the market sewn shut until they repeatedly screwed up so badly that they managed to make themselves irrelevant.
Skype... I don't even wanna talk about that given how badly Microsoft has lobotomized it.
Apple's imessenger has been relatively successful, partly for the same reason blackberry had the market before (ie: so many people have i-devices that there's a good chance that it will just work), partly because it integrates with SMS so you can still message people who don't use imessage, and partly because handoff integration lets you deal with messages on any other apple device you own, which is a pretty darn big thing and something almost no other vendor provides.
And then when you move away from those, there's Snapchat, Viber, WhatsApp, and the 5 bajillion other instant messengers out there, none of whom inter-operate and thus requiring you to have a dozen client apps running at all times on your computer or phone just to keep in contact with everyone.
I would love to see Signal become dominant, unfortunate they appear to have painted themselves into some kind of corner cause they only have mobile apps, and the "desktop" app is just a chrome extension in beta that only connects to the android version. They're, quite simply, moving too slowly.
Telegram appears to be the trailing racehorse that is picking up steam, because they have almost as good security (debatable, but for many people good enough) as Signal, but actually has their feature set down. All major mobile platforms, all major desktop platforms, and it Just Works(tm), including full and seamless sharing of unencrypted messages between multiple devices. No audio or video chat, but messaging and attachment handling is reasonably solid.
If the industry flat out insists on balkanizing, then Telegram seems to be the "screw the man!" option that the average person (ie: people who have never heard of XMPP, and don't really care either), can use.