Google Spaces was a mobile app for group discussions and messaging developed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. The app was intended to compete with Slack as a content sharing platform where users can create a "space", invite their friends for discussion, and share videos, images, text, and other media. Google services such as the web browser Chrome, search engine

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

, and video sharing platform

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

were built into the app to allow users to source content from them. Google Spaces launched on May 16, 2016, available on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

, Android, and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

operating systems. The app was discontinued on April 17, 2017. The Spaces brand name was revived for a feature in

Google Chat Google Chat is a Communication software, communication service developed by Google. Initially designed for teams and business environments, it has since been made available for general consumers. It provides Private message, direct messaging, ...

, formerly named Rooms.

History

On May 16, 2016, product director Luke Wroblewski announced the launch of Spaces as "a tool for small group sharing". On February 16, 2017, Google announced Spaces would be discontinued on April 17. On March 3, Google announced that users could only print, view and delete existing spaces within the app, users could no longer create new spaces.

Features

Spaces allowed group chatting and messaging between users. Users initiated conversations by creating a 'space' and then inviting friends to join. Once inside a 'space', there was a box at the bottom of the screen where one could tap buttons to post links and images and other content to the chat room. A conversational view let users see what the group was talking about. Google products such as

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

, and

were in built into the app to allow users to find and share articles, videos, and images without leaving the app. It required a

account to sign up. The following were the types of posts that a user could share in a "space": * Links – URLs of media which are automatically embedded * Videos – YouTube videos were integrated for mobile users; however, desktop users could directly search in the YouTube database as well as see their recently watched videos * Photos – With support for multiple-image uploads, users could directly post through their camera roll or through

Google Photos Google Photos is a photo sharing and Cloud storage, storage service developed by Google. It was announced in May 2015 and spun off from Google+, the company's former Social networking service, social network. Google Photos shares the 15 gigab ...

* Text – Plain text, without formatting support

References

{{Google LLC Collaborative software Spaces Spaces