Google is rebranding Hangouts Chat as just Google Chat

[Maddox]

Google has officially removed the Hangouts brand from its enterprise G Suite offering with the rebranding of Hangouts Chat as Google Chat, the company confirmed to The Verge on Thursday. The rebranding follows a similar name change, confirmed yesterday, from the companion videoconferencing app Hangouts Meet to Google Meet.

This latest modification was first hinted at by an updated G Suite support document listing the Google Chat name alongside Google Meet. Of course, this version of Chat is not to be confused with the other version of Chat, the name Google inexplicably gave its relatively new RCS-based Android messaging protocol.

As for the Hangouts brand, it will continue to live on as the name of the consumer chat app that Google spun out of its shutdown social network Google+ back in 2013 as a spiritual successor to Gchat. “There will be no changes to the consumer (classic) version of Hangouts,” a Google spokesperson tells The Verge.

Google is rebranding Hangouts Chat as just Google Chat

The Hangouts brand will live on in the consumer chat app that replaced Gchat.

www.theverge.com

I wonder how many times Google needs to rename its chat and messaging services before people actually care and start using them