Even after being a smart messaging app developed by Google itself, ‘Allo’ has not been able to appeal the masses. Over the past month, the company has been trying to incorporate new features to entice users. In order to hit the headlines once again, a minor feature has now been introduced, allowing users to create polls in conversations.
The development was shared by Amit Fulay, Head of Product at Google (Allo and Duo) via his twitter account. He tweeted,
trying out our new polling feature in Allo, let’s go Gonzaga #GoogleAllo pic.twitter.com/M5e3Qw14sR
— Amit Fulay (@amitfulay) April 3, 2017
The poll feature is accessible using a simple chatbot. As soon you type @yes/no followed by the question for the poll, the new chatbot integrated into the app automatically creates a poll. Each member part of the chat has a right to vote and can view the number of votes at a particular time. Thus, conveying to you the number of members in favor (or opposition) of a decision. The person who organized the poll is given the option to conclude the poll whenever he feels like, after which nobody will be able to cast their votes.
The advantage of this fresh feature is that you can simply count on the majority on a particular topic by hosting a poll. Other than that, Allo stands apart amid the populated messaging space with the integration of the quirky Google Assistant; since other commonly used messaging app do not have such a feature.
However, being a typical Yes/No census chatbot, it may not be used as much as Google thinks it will be. But, one can expect custom options other than just Yes or No may roll out in near future, considering user convenience and popularity. The feature has gone live and enhances the functionality of the app.
This one follows the introduction of the Lucky feature within Allo, a couple of months ago. It does the same thing when you press “I’m feeling lucky” button on Google’s search engine page. However, with Lucky, you get a GIF which is applicable to the word you type.
