As of June 26, 2017 Google Talk, also known as “GChat”, will no longer be supported (except in rare circumstances) by Google.
Google Talk was released in 2005 but has been continuously phased out since the launch of Google Hangouts.
According to a blog post by Google, June 26 is the date when Google will essentially force Google Talk users to transition over to Google Hangouts.
This transition is probably well over due by now. Google Hangouts essentially replicates the features included in Google Talk while, at the same time, including additional features such as video chat.
According to Google, the transition should go pretty smoothly and users shouldn’t lose any data when transitioning from Talk to Hangouts.
Google is known for having services that replicate each other in one way or another. At times, this can be frustrating and confusing for users so it is nice to see when they merge services together or do away with legacy services.
It seems as though Google is also trying to streamline it’s messaging services related to Android devices.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see more of Google’s communication related services to be included in the Hangouts suite as time goes on.
Google has made improvements in recent years to communicate more openly with it’s users about product updates so hopefully there won’t be any surprises.
