WhatsApp groups considered one of the best ways to gather people and talk about a common interest. However, a group comes with two flaws — having to switch between apps to share content and too many people talking about too many things. While the latter has no solution, Google reckons its new offering, Spaces, has you covered with the former.
Announcing its launch on the company's official blog, Google said it wants to build a better sharing experience with Spaces, which is why the platform comes with Search, Chrome and YouTube built in.
With Spaces, users can search for web pages, GIFs, videos and more, experience them and further the conversation without ever having to leave the app itself. The shared content is displayed in Google's familiar card-style format.
Creating a Space is as simple as tapping on the screen and each space is colour-coded by default to tell them apart. Based on the Space's topic of interest, the group icon and background image can be customised and friends and family members can be added at the touch of a button and invited through the communication apps one has on their smartphone.
Much like how Photos lets users search for specific images based on keywords, Spaces allows users to key in specific words to look up links and images shared on any Space. A touch of the screen also allows users to view specific types of media on the app.
While Spaces may seem like yet another attempt by Google to create a social media platform, the company doesn't see it filling that position. Spaces is still very much like a WhatsApp group and while users can type in their thoughts, shared content seems to be USP here. Google, in its blog post, cited examples of book clubs, planning weekend trips and a shared interest in comic books, and Spaces could be more accurately compared to a Subreddit than anything else.
Spaces is availale as an iOS and Android app, as a Chrome extension and can be accessed through spaces.google.com.
