14 DAY TRIAL // For several months now, Google has said that it is working on making its teams more independent and work more like startups inside the company. One of the foremost examples is Slide, a company that Google acquired last year but which continued to operate on its own. And now we have the first palpable, so to speak, result, Slide has launched Disco a group messaging app and website.
Disco was launched quietly and neither Slide or Google is saying much at this point. The service is still in beta and available only in the US.
It's also rather bare bones, compared to other group messaging apps, though those that got a chance to play with it said it was fast, the fastest such app, and looked pretty good, for a Google app, which is not saying much.
The app works as advertised though it still lacking some pretty basic features. Group messaging is also one of the hot areas of the moment.
But it's not the app itself that's the most interesting, it's the fact that although it's a completely independent app and service, it's already owned by Google.
If it proves successful, Google doesn't have to go shopping for a group messaging app, it's already got one. It also did this without getting involved in any way, well, except for paying for the salaries of Slide employees.
And if the app takes off, Google can find a way to tie it to its existing services, if that even makes sense. It's not like Google has had much success with social services and apps, so if it can do it with something completely new, perhaps a clean slate makes more sense.
Telling is the fact that there's no Android app at the moment, though perhaps one is in the works. It shows that Google is really committed to letting talented teams work independently.
With Larry Page taking over as CEO soon and already running things at the company, we're going to see more of this. One of Page's big goals and the main reason he is taking the reins is to cut down on bureaucracy and get Google operating more like a startup rather than an encumbered.