Meet likely to replace Duo as Google looks to better take on Zoom

Google Duo: Google might be cutting Google Duo lose! There are reports that the tech giant could get rid of Google Duo, which the company has for so long pitched as a video calling platform for informal purposes. However, with Zoom rapidly having gained user base due to the first-mover advantage at the beginning of the pandemic-induced lockdown, Google had to shift from its traditional positioning strategy and had to launch Meet as the perfect competitor for Zoom, for professional video meetings, as well as personal video calls. If reports are to be believed, this has made Duo redundant, at least in the eyes of G Suite head Javier Soltero, who will now also take care of consumer communication services.

Google had launched Meet and made it free to use, much like Duo itself. Meet had become integrated with the desktop version of Gmail and more recently, it was even introduced to the Gmail mobile app. The company might be thinking of keeping only one app to serve the video calling purposes, and as per reports, they could merge both Duo and Meet to make Duet.

Duo was an important part of the Google products before Meet was introduced, especially after Google’s Allo could not take off. Duo has several features like group calls, web client as well as video and audio messages. It came pre-installed in Android phones and was integrated with the phone dialer and Google Messages. It was especially easy to start a video call with a contact using Duo.

It is likely that the Meet app could be reworked to introduce some of the features of Duo like phone contacting users for video, end-to-end encryption of calls and 3D effects among others.

Of the two video calling apps, it is most likely that Google is choosing to get rid of Duo due to the popularity of Meet, which has overtaken that of Duo. The newly launched platform saw its peak daily use jump by a whopping 30 times in the latter end of April, whereas the jump for Duo during the corresponding period was a mere eight times.