Google announces 17 new chat services [SATIRE]

Google today announced the development of 17 new, separate chat services to replace Google Hangouts.

"Since the launch of Google Talk in 2005, we at Google have been on a mission to make the messenger service space as confusing as possible for every human on Earth," stated Google CEO Sundar Pichai. "The launch of Hangouts in 2013 was a good first step in really muddying up the waters. And the subsequent releases of Google Allo, Google Duo, Google Meet, and Google Chat did a great job of making the simple act of 'sending a message to a friend' as complicated as possible. But we knew we could do better."

The first of these 17 new chat services and applications to be released -- Google Heya, Google Hello, and Google WhatsAllThisThen -- are available immediately. The remaining 14 services are scheduled to be released over the coming year.

"Later this summer, things get really fun," stated Amanda Frisco, Head of Customer Annoyance Programs for Google. "With the release of Google Cortana, Google Siri, and Google Alexa -- all brand new chat applications that are functionality identical to Google Hangouts -- we think we can really make a lot of people's heads explode."

According to the press release from Google, some of the chat applications will be able to talk to some (but not all) of the other chat applications. Google Heya, for example, will be able to send messages to Google Alexa. And Google Alexa will be able to send messages to Google Hello. But Google Hello and Google Heya will not be able to send messages to each other.

Which application can talk to which is also said to rotate, based on the day of the week.

"We've made a flowchart to help people know who they can or cannot communicate with on any given day from any given chat app," stated Pichai. "Our research indicated this would make things much more entertaining for Google management."