Introduction

Google isn’t a company that’s easily deterred by failure. Unable to crack the video-calling market with its Hangouts service, the firm is trying once again with Duo. But is there any reason to believe Duo will be more successful than its predecessor? And is it bad news for the consumer, making the prospect of cross- platform video calls even less likely?

Duo vs The Rivals

Duo will work on both iOS and Android, and goes up against Apple’s FaceTime, WhatsApp (with its billion active users) and Facebook Messenger and WeChat (which are both approaching that number). Not to mention Skype. Taking a closer look, reveals that, Google faces an uphill battle to garner anything close to its rivals’ huge user numbers, especially given its previous false starts with communications tools. It’s a tough pitch when users in the Android ecosystem have already committed to other platforms or aren’t actually interested. It’s the same in iOS, even more so given how popular FaceTime is with users.

Despite the stiff competition, Google has one key advantage: it could insist manufacturers include Duo as part of the compendium of apps that must be installed as a condition of using Android. Under its licensing agreement, the company demands that Google Maps, YouTube, the Chrome browser and other apps are preinstalled on Android handsets. With an estimated 1.5 million Android activations per day, that would give Google a major headstart.

The forced bundling of apps was one of the recent antitrust complaints against Google, which could see the company having to stop bundling apps in the same way Microsoft was punished for bundling tools in Windows. We’ve seen this in the past with Microsoft and the browser, and then with security. Whether on desktop or mobile, it was never good for the industry, and in many cases, it got the attention of the regulatory and competition authorities. I think this may be the case this time too.

The Cross-Platform Calls

The fractured state of the video-calling industry means that Google’s service – like the others – will only work if both parties are using the same app. It’s a frustrating state of affairs, and is far from the ease of mobile phone calls, but some operators within the industry believe it’s time to make cross-platform video calling the norm, even if the big players are reluctant to take the plunge.

Conclusion

There are also valuable datasets to be collected from knowing who is talking to whom and when – and while Google can’t monetise chat, it may use the information collected from users to better target adverts and to build detailed profiles of Duo users. I can’t speak for Google, but if I was Google and my business depended on advertisements, then I would definitely use this kind of service to know who you call on the video, when do you call, and then I’d have a much better profile. Your connections to those people that are important to you are valuable. After all, people only make video calls to those they are close to.

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