Recently, Google began to inform YouTube users that Hangouts is being discontinued in 2019. This means that Google’s Webmaster Hangouts will be affected as well. John Mueller of Google got the message at the same time.
Google’s official Hangouts support page had a note appended to the top of the page alerting users that the service is ending.
The official notice said:
“The classic Hangouts On Air streaming experience is going away later in 2019. For quick streaming, try YouTube.com/webcam.”
This is what John Mueller stated:
“YouTube just sent me an alert before when I started the Hangout that these Hangouts are going away apparently.
So I need to figure out some other way to do these office hours hangouts because I find them really useful.”
So we’ll have to figure out something else. The set up might be a little different. Hopefully it doesn’t get too complicated… we’ll figure something out.”
Google suggested that users transition to Webcam or Google Meet.
according to Google’s GSuite support page, Google Hangouts Meet has a 100 meeting participant limit, and this is for the Enterprise edition.
Despite this news, John Mueller seemed optimisitc that Webmaster Hangouts will continue. It was a popular way for the publisher community to communicate directly with Google.
Watch Google’s John Mueller here.
https://youtu.be/u7JY_Tz2c4U?t=3000
Read Google’s Support Page announcement here.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7083786?hl=en