Conversations that is the central aspect of communication has become almost everything we do on the web. Google may excel in crawling and indexing the web, but it's never that good in the social sphere.
Spaces is Google's way for not introducing a traditional messaging app in the way Facebook's Messenger or WhatsApp, or even Google's very own Hangout are, but it cater to specific topics rather than just particular people.
Spaces for its namesake, is where conversations live where activities now include some "space". For example, activities on vacation can have their own place, not disturbed with others like from activities from work.
The idea behind Spaces is that people in a group often have to use multiple apps when sharing content. The reason for this is simple: we need to copy and paste things. Spaces tries to eliminate all that work by putting everything within one app, allowing people to instantly share things around any topic.
Initially at its launch, Spaces have three post types: links (GIFs and YouTube videos), photos and text.
What Spaces is all about, is to be used by small groups of friends, family or co-workers who may need to coordinate a plan, or just to discuss common interest. It's like a Pinterest-styled link and image collection where discussion around a content can take a priority over others. Google foresees the app being used for things like book clubs, study groups, discussing TV shows, or planning weekend trips. It's Pinterest, but with a specific focus on small group conversations and activities.
Creating A Space
To use Space, users must first create a space by login into spaces.google.com, or open up the Spaces app. A greeting will pop up showing the users' current spaces, and the option to create a new one.
Once a space has been created, there are two basic views. The first is the space view, which looks like a chat app. In the desktop version, it appears on the left side of the screen. Posts and comments appear in round-corner bubbles. The second is the Activity stream which is like a timeline of things. In the desktop version, it appears on the right side of your screen. In the mobile version, the Activity stream auto-refreshes. In the desktop version, you have to click the refresh button, which is a round arrow above the stream.
Spaces will automatically assigns a color and cover image to new created spaces. This could be customized later by clicking the three-dot menu and accessing the "Customize space". Users can rename their space, choose other cover images, and so forth.
Each space shows a little avatar bubble of currently available participants.
To add more users, the "Invite via" is available to send to others so they can join. On the web, users can simply copy a link, or send an email/post. But only on mobile, the app allows users to invite others through standard share sheet.
There is a blue arrow button located at the bottom for shortcut. It allows users to copy in the link or photo to share it immediately. Users can then either post it to the current space the user is on, or create a completely new one around that item.
Baked inside it, there are plenty of features that streamline the process of communicating with several people in a group. When someone shares something new, for example, a conversational view lets you see what the entire group is talking about at that moment. And because its Google, there is also a search feature built-in.
Google is the mightiest search engine on the web, but it never had that much success in the social networking sphere. Its very own Google+ is dying a slow death, and Hangout is not that competitive. For that reason, the company has been looking for ways to help users to look and share contents online, the things that it does best.
Spaces could also be used to chat to people. But it involves a lot more steps, and it isn't created for that. Spaces is more than just a chatting app. It isn't a Hangout replacement and far from a text messaging alternative. It's not a social media either. It's just a place by Google for you to gather things around your activities.
Google Spaces is initially available for Gmail account users on Android, iOS and both the desktop and mobile web.