The Rise and Fall of Social Media Empires: GChat Podcast Transcript

What role did GChat play in shaping the social media landscape?  We explore what made it so popular, why so many people stopped using it, and what it's contributed to social media as we know it today.

Taryn Ward  Hi, I'm Taryn Ward, and this is Breaking the Feed, Social Media: Beyond the Headlines. 

TW.  We're taking a closer look at the core issues around social media, including the rise and fall of social media empires, to better understand the role social media plays in our everyday lives in society. 

TW.  Today, we'll take a look at Google's GChat or whichever name you know or knew it by.  This one is a bit of a cheat because, arguably, Google, the Empire itself, is still very much alive and well, and Google Chat was, and is, a feature.  But we couldn't really do this series without thinking about Google's attempts to break into the social spaces and thinking about where things may have gone differently.

TW.  As always, we'll start with a question.  Beginning in 2005, what role did GChat play in shaping the social media landscape?  Backing up just a bit, Gmail launched in 2004 and soon after, the ability to instant message within the email system became available, first called Google Talk, then rolled up into Google Plus, then Google Hangouts.  Now, in a different way, back to Google Chat.  It's often referred to as GChat or GMessage, especially by users and fans.  There have been several names and iterations, but the core concept was relatively consistent for a long time.  It was a way to chat with multiple people online.

TW.  Thinking about the features made GChat.  In some ways, it's helpful to draw some contrasts.  What did GChat offer in 2005 that AOL Instant Messenger or AIM didn't?  First, AIM was a download, but GChat didn't require a download at all.  AOL was a paid service and was subscription-based.  In other words, if you or your parents didn't pay to be part of it, you couldn't use their chat systems.  AIM was revolutionary in that it offered a free download.  So, a much larger group of people could use it.  But it still did require a download.  So, if you were using a public computer or a friends' device who didn't already have it, it could be a little bit awkward to ask them to download new software.  And some computers didn't allow the download at all.

TW.  GChat was different, because you didn't have to download anything, you could just sign into your email and access the chat feature is part of that system.  The other thing that's important to think about is how conversations were logged.  On AIM conversation was saved until the chat window was closed.  So, you would chat with somebody one day and then close the window, and in most cases, that conversation was gone forever, you could copy and paste it, of course, there are other workarounds.  But for the most part, it was there while it was there, and then it was gone forever.  GChat didn't work that way, the conversations were logged and saved.  So, you could review what was said and go back, really helpful to find information and recommendations.  Also, it meant that anything that you said was a matter of record in a different way than it was on AIM.

TW.  It was also possible to be a bit less obvious with GChat.  AIM opened as a separate window.  So, your buddy list popped up.  And that was one thing within each chat that you had was also a separate window.  So, it was pretty clear to anyone glancing at your screen that you were chatting and networking, especially if you had five or six shots going at the same time.  Not that any of us ever did that when we were meant to be working.  But, but again, even from a distance, it would be pretty clear that you were sending various different chats and not working on one thing.

TW.  GChat was different because it opened in the browser over your email.  So, it would take a much closer look for someone to know you were chatting and not drafting an email or making a note, even if you had several windows open at the same time.  Thinking about how Gmail and GChat developed;  like AIM, GChat was a skunkworks project, and so was Gmail, but unlike AIM, they very much had the support of their parent company.  Although initially it wasn't promised a launch.  They didn't face any of the initial resistance AIM did.  More than that, because there was no conflict in terms of the revenue model between Gmail and GChat and Google, and in fact, there are some fairly clear ways even early on for Gmail and GChat to support Google, these systems were able to operate in a way that supported each other.  Whereas AIM and AOL were in some ways at odds from the beginning and throughout. 

TW.  So, let's think about whether GChat can be considered a social media network and how it worked to begin with. GChat was designed to allow people to chat with others, they were already connected to by email.  In the earliest days, it encouraged people to exchange emails in situations where otherwise they maybe wouldn't have because it was a less formal way of communicating as opposed to sending an email.  Just for context, cell phones were pretty regular by then, but texting wasn't as easy as it was now because there are still no smartphones.  So, we're still in the days of either, you know, Blackberry or sort of the click three times to get the letter you want.  So, exchanging phone numbers was something that happened but that was a sort of a step up, exchanging emails that you could reach out with someone was sort of a softer, gentler sort of thing, and it allowed for less formal communication.  So, you know, rather than writing an email that says Dear Taryn, and whatever else, you're going to say, it was very much acceptable to just say, hey there…, in a quick chat, and it really did feel appropriate and like the right way to communicate.

TW.  Was GChat, a social media network?  Well, we've previously defined social media networks as web-based services that allow individuals to do four things.

• First, construct a public or semi public profile within a bounded system.  Yes.
• Two, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection.  Yep, easy!
• Three, view and traverse their list of connections, yes.  And those made by others within the system, not really so much.
• Four, publish or broadcast digital content that others can consume.  Yes.

Users were not able to see who other users were connected with, so GChat partially fails the third prong.  But, because in many ways, it took over from AIM, which we've already made an exception for, and was in many important ways a precursor for Slack, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger; because this seems like the direction social networks are headed in any way, and because in some ways, this was the closest Google ever came to breaking into the social media networking space, we felt it worth including, and, for our purposes, really, it counts.

TW.  So, what went wrong?  Arguably nothing.  But let's think about what opportunities maybe were missed or where things could have gone differently.  Although GChat had more support than AIM.  To my knowledge, Google never threatened to fire GChat developers or kill the project.  Google never officially acknowledged GChat as GChat, and instead insisted on calling Google Talk and Google Chat, and in fact, if you search the internet for the history of GChat, you're likely to find some confused and confusing results.

TW.   I'm not exactly clear on why this is, users and super fans refer to it as GChat at the time and still refer to it this way.  So, I'm not really sure why Google didn't embrace this, and especially now that there's nostalgia fever all over the place, why they haven't gone back.  In 2013, Hangouts replaced Google Talk, Google Plus and Hangouts and Messenger, even as GChat continued to exist.  And now we're back to Google Chat.  Or, as Google tells us, Google Hangouts has been “upgraded” to Google Chat, whatever that means.

TW.  I could argue straight faced, that nothing went wrong here.  GChat, or whatever Google decides to call, it still exists in some form, and is relatively widely used.  Still, there was a moment when it was so big and so important, and had so much potential, it felt almost inevitable that GChat would be what most of us now use several different platforms to achieve.  And maybe that was the problem.  In their eagerness to innovate and try new things.  Google threw everything at the wall, and it became a bit overwhelming.  Or maybe Google's indecision in terms of naming indicated a deeper lack of commitment that users picked up on, either in terms of feature development or support, and moved on accordingly.

TW.  For some, I imagine the shift away from Google as being the good guys towards something, a bit grayer may have led them to seek out alternatives as a matter of principle, or out of concern for things like their privacy.

TW.  Or maybe, as more options became available, people started to diversify their messaging options, and there's more of a desire for work messages to be just work messages, emails to be just emails and for social messaging to find a more appropriate alternative.

 TW.  For me, GChat was a critical part of my personal and professional development, both in law school and during the early stages of my career.  Although my reasons for moving away from it will probably unique to my own circumstances, within three to five years, many friends and colleagues also shifted away from it, and it didn't seem to catch on with younger generations in quite the same way.

TW.  Like AIM, GChat was an opportunity to connect with people in writing informally.  One major difference, as we've talked about already, was the default saving of messaging threads, which we're all pretty aware of early on.  By this time, Facebook was on the scene, so, there was a broader sense in concern that our lives were being documented.  It was a much softer version of what we see now, a few photos from a night out on Facebook, private conversation threads on GChat. But many of us were starting to have a sense that things were changing in terms of our own privacy and the ability to make mistakes.  This may have been magnified because we were law school and many of us were very aware that we would need to pass character and fitness to be admitted to practice.  But there were also conversations happening about the potential consequences of this more broadly, especially in terms of future employment.

TW.  GChat also felt more grown up than AIM had, whether it was the awareness that these conversations were being recorded, or because it was taking place over the top of emails, or maybe just because I was more grown up, it felt less like a place to be playful or creative and more like a place to be clever.  When we think about the most popular socials with young people now it's interesting to think about how the pendulum may have swung back in the other direction.  But for our generation, who had already had some practice expressing ourselves and our feelings on AIM, GChat felt like a natural progression in some ways, and I used it similarly.  And when I think about law school, and this is true for the personal and professional side, it's impossible to separate that experience from GChat.  Whether it was bracing for the Socratic method in class, late nights in the library, or late nights really should have been in the library.  It was a way to share information, thoughts, and feelings, it was really important to how we communicated with, and understood each other. 

TW.  Beyond some of that sentimentality, what can we learn from GChat?  If AIM's problem was a failure to innovate, Google's insistence on fixing or renaming what wasn't broken, almost certainly played some role in GChat's loss of popularity. Maybe there can be too much of a good thing.  If people use Google for search, work, and email; maybe they welcomed a break to message socially and informally somewhere else.  Sometimes simpler is better.  The ability to send instant messages over the top of emails without downloading anything was brilliant, and it was appreciated as such at the time.  Although arguably, it would have been difficult not to compete with voice and video options.  A simpler version closer to the original might have allowed for other expansion opportunities, including in the direction, Slack and WhatsApp took, and that's where we can most clearly see GChat's contribution to the social space.  It demonstrated a clear need and desire to have faster, less formal conversations with people we already knew.  And we've seen other socials pick up on that.  It was recently announced that even TikTok is really leaning into this idea of allowing people to chat and making that more of a feature of their offering.

TW.  If you enjoyed hearing about the rise and fall of Google's GChat, look out for upcoming episodes on the rise and fall of MySpace and Clubhouse.  In the meantime, we'll post a transcript of this episode with references on our website.  You can find this and more information about us at TheBrightApp.com.

TW.  Until next time, I'm Taryn Ward.  Thank you for joining us for Breaking the Feed, Social Media: beyond the Headlines.