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So Mini I Missed It
I missed Portal Mini’s release. Why?
I’ve been critical and then forgiving of the Facebook Portal. (Read a Portal to Nowhere). I had missed initially that it had Alexa integration and thought it was coming out with its own AI assistant. The idea of a dedicated device for video conferencing is compelling. Nucleus first launched as a brand well before the Echo Show had come out.
The Portal made a cameo on Modern Family in September but maybe I missed the Mini part. Modern Family has done episodes with Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa before. Why not Portal? Portal is a conduit for Messenger, which to give credit to Facebook, is solid for video and messaging. It works well on Android and iPhone but except for families that are exclusively a Facebook Messenger household, I’m still not sure sure why one would get a dedicated device.
Facebook, Amazon, and Google all fall into this same zone. Amazon has hardware that works well for voice but the messenger service, Alexa Calling, is wonky and difficult to use for non Echo users. As well, most associate the Echo with voice first and not necessarily video calling. Google’s Hangouts are also not as popular as some of the other services.
Facebook could move in two directions that could make it unique. The first would be to allow other messaging services to work on its…
