There is no more space in the digital universe for Google Space. The group messaging app will take its final bow over the next few weeks and by April 17, 2017, it will disappear forever. While this is sad news for the five people (okay, maybe seven) who were still using it, it does indicate that Google is probably trying to have a more focused messaging strategy and may even incorporate what was good about the app into their other services.
Spaces was launched around May of 2016, and was meant for small groups of people to create conversations about specific topics that would interest them. You would create a “space” where you can invite either colleagues, family members, or friends and then pull in Google searches, images, videos and other information from other Google products. However, it didn’t really catch on, and so the announcement that it was shutting down wasn’t really met with any surprise.
Starting March 3, the app will be read-only so you can’t really create new ones or invite people or add posts and comments. But you can see and save if needed all your existing content and delete the spaces you’ve already created. But by April 17, all spaces and content will be gone forever. Since not a lot of people actually used it, there shouldn’t be any major problem.
Google said that they will be using what they learned from the small-group sharing experience to improve their other products. Allo, the messaging app that they are pushing, has already integrated Google Assistant for pulling information to the conversation, so let’s see what else they were able to get from Spaces.
SOURCE: Google
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