Google’s newest messaging and video chat platforms, Allo and Duo respectively are poised to potentially fail — hard.

Google has Hangouts already, which is almost a complete product;yet, they’ve invested time, development dollars and more on two new separate apps (that are end-to-end encrypted, by the the way).  The company is also touting the fact that these apps are “specialized” with the fact that they do one thing.  Certainly an interesting notion.

The real issue here is that Google is confusing consumers, they don’t know if they should use Messaging, Hangouts or the new combination of Allo and Duo.  Furthermore, we certainly do not know what OEMs will include on the devices that they ship once these apps are live.  Will they include the apps made my Google or will they make their own terrible emulations of them (cue Samsung)?  THAT is the issue.  We need clear direction of where Google and Android want to take messaging as it has been a mess for years with many consumers simply sticking to whatever app is thrown on their device.

With the rollout officially underway, download these from the Play Store or App Store when they are available and give them a try.

Bottom line:  Google, make your intentions clear!