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The life and death of Hangouts: A Google tragedy

Or: A Hangouts retrospective on the eve of its retirement

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The transition from Hangouts to Google Chat is now happening in earnest, with many even reporting that their group conversations have moved between the two platforms. It's just a matter of time until Hangouts itself is retired, so let's take a moment to look back at Google's most successful — and, perhaps, most ignored — messaging platform.

Hanging Out With Google Hangouts - Google's New, Beautiful Messaging App That Doesn't Really Unify Anything

The new Google Messenger is real! It's not called Babel, or Google Talk, but "Hangouts." It also isn't the unified messenger we've all wanted - maybe it

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The new Google Messenger is real! It's not called Babel, or Google Talk, but "Hangouts." It also isn't the unified messenger we've all wanted - maybe it will be someday, but Hangouts is strictly a Google Talk replacement - there's no SMS or Google Voice integration.

Google I/O 2013: Google's To-Do List This Year

Google I/O is coming! We'll know about all of Google's new projects in just 2 short agonizingly long weeks. While we desperately count the days until May

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Google I/O is coming! We'll know about all of Google's new projects in just 2 short agonizingly long weeks. While we desperately count the days until May 15th, we thought it would be a great idea to take stock all of the things we've caught wind of lately.

We've been seeing leak after leak about Google's rumored unified messaging service. Now, as more details get seemingly confirmed and and we even get a look at the possibly near-finished app, clearly this is the time for Google to acquire a competing IM service, right? Well, not so much, according to AllThingsD. As it turns out, Mountain View is not about to buy WhatsApp, a company that makes a product that Google is currently nearly done building itself. Just in case you were wondering.

Tech Radar just came through with some really convincing screenshots of the Google Babel web interface. Check this out:

From poorly-executed "leaks" to potential legitimate sightings, there's been a lot of hubbub about Google's supposed unified messaging service, likely called Babel. This isn't necessarily surprising. After all, if you asked most Android enthusiasts what feature they most wanted from the platform in its next iteration, you'd hear a lot about unified messaging. We've tried to stay clear of covering every flurry of Babel-related murmurings so far, but today we saw something new – Google+ user Patric Dhawaan posted a screenshot of what he says is a notification in Gmail, triggered when "pruning" his inbox.

Update: Previously, I mentioned that Babel Rising 3D contains in-app purchasing options. These have since been removed.

Is it possible to promise more in a game than "the power of God"? Probably not. That's what Babel Rising 3D, from AMALtd, is offering, though. In this game, the puny mortals of Earth are working to build a tower to the heavens and it's your role to stop them. Because that's how the story goes. You have a cornucopia of disasters, plagues and, well, acts of God, at your disposal.