Tech Gaint “Google” is Planning to Merge “Duo” Video calling app with its “Meet” app!

With the advent of classic Hangouts, Google now has two video calling applications. However, that is one too adequate for the company. Sources familiar with the matter told us that Google Duo will eventually be superseded by Meet. Google Duo has become a popular video calling application in the five years since its launch, and now there are new reports that the search engine giant is planning to merge Duo with the Meet app.

According to a report by 9to5Google, the tech giant Google may plan to abolish its Duo video calling application. Google has integrated its Meet application with Gmail. As per reports, Google’s possible move is related to the company’s transfer of its consumer communications services to the head of G Suite Javier Soltero. After unifying the team, the existence of two independent video calling applications does not make much sense. According to reports, a senior representative of Google communicated to employees that two applications for video calls are not actually needed.

In order to compete with Zoom, Google launched the Meet video calling application that is free to use like Duo. The meet app is also integrated into the Gmail platform. The company may be considered along with retaining only one video calling application to meet regular and corporate needs. According to the report, these two applications can be merged into “Duet” (Duo + Meet), which will see some functions of Duo integrated into Meet, including end-to-end encryption, 3D effects, and contact persons for a video via phone number.

The technology giant’s attention has recently shifted to Meet, making it a Zoom competitor. Google also announced earlier this week that it will add various updates to the “Meet” as part of the “School Anywhere” program.

Google recently announced that the Meet’s peak daily usage has increased by 32 times, including 3 billion minutes of video conferencing and nearly 3 million new users every day. There are more than 100 million daily conference participants.

History of a successful product

Besides this, the Duo app itself has been welcomed by consumers, especially because many Android OEMs now use it as the default video call application.

Google Duo was launched at 2016 I/O conference. It is a new consumer messaging strategy to replace Hangouts. Before the Meet app, Duo had become an important video app for Google.

Although Google Allo cannot succeed, Duo was succeeded because of its video calling feature. Group call support, web client, and audio and video messages have been added to certain features in Duo. The application is pre-installed and integrated with Google Mail and Phone Dialer. Making video calls with contacts is very easy.

The update released in April introduced the AV1 codec to improve the quality of video calls, built-in screenshots, larger groups, and the ability to save messages. Google launched a “family mode” in early May, with more virtual effects, link-based invitations, and 32-person calls.

The Future
Since the beginning of the pandemic and the rapid popularity of video calling services, Google has been making rapid improvements to Meet and even providing it for free to all types of users.

For Google, Meet has monetized and thrived as part of G Suite from day one, and the popularity of Zoom shows that ordinary users can use corporate applications for personal communication. The main difference in 2020 is how the public is now familiar with generating links and then sending links to others, instead of having a direct contact list. Through integration with Gmail, the company also clearly recognized the importance of Meet.

Before the merging happens, the current plan is to bring several major Duo features to consumers over to the Meet app.

The report quoted a source as saying that the Meet application will be improved or revamped through some of Google Duo’s features, such as end-to-end encryption, contacting users via phone for video, 3D effects, etc. According to reports, the popularity of Google Meet has surpassed Duo. The report cited Google as saying that Peak’s daily use of Meet has soared by 30 times in late April, while Duo’s use has only increased by 8 times during the same period.

Lastly, Google said that it is studying how its video call products can improve each other, which hints that the two services will no longer remain independent in the future, which may imply that Duo and Meet apps will eventually merge.

Later, an email was sent to the “active” users of Google’s classic website, detailing its elimination work, which will be carried out next year. The subject line of the email is to migrate your classic site to the new Google site, and the title is that the service will be completely shut down on September 1, 2021. To begin this transition, the creation of the classic website will be deactivated on November 1, 2020. After that, users will have less than a year to migrate to the new site.

According to the report, if the transition occurs, it will take at least two years to merge these two tools.