Social media apps have evolved in the last decade — Instagram shed its photos-first appeal to become one of the biggest hubs for short video Reels, Facebook learnt many new tricks, and passed bits like stories on to every other popular Meta app, WhatsApp included. Although the chat-focused platform has relentlessly chased after Telegram’s superior feature set, WhatsApp has also shifted focus from one-to-one and small group messaging towards large-scale interactions with Communities and Channels. Now, it appears Google is swooping in on the opportunity with Chats, formerly known as Hangouts.
