Google Says Farewell to "Hello" Photo Sharing

All good things come to an end. So it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Hello.

Hello will be shut down on May 15th.

We originally embarked on a mission to make photo sharing easier and more fun with Hello. We plan to keep carrying that torch in new projects to come.

We hope that you continue to enjoy the other sharing products Google offers including Picasa, Picasa Web Albums and Google Talk.

Keep on sharing!

- The Hello Team

The site's shut down, so how can you even use the service (until May 15th)? Well, if you've already got the software installed, you can continue to use it until May 15th.

Although the site is just a placeholder now, the "How It Works" section of their site used to say:

Hello is a new program that lets you connect directly with your friends to share your digital pictures. If you’ve used an instant messenger program before, you’ve already got the idea—Hello is special because it lets you share your pictures along with your messages.

With Hello, you just pick what pictures you want to show off, and click “Send.” That’s it. Hello takes care of all the hard work. And you and your friends can download full resolution, print-quality pictures from each other, while you’re doing more important things, like talking about your pictures.

Reactions: decidedly negative. There are several threads about saving "Hello" in the Picasa Help section of Google Groups (examples: 1, 2, 3). Will Google change their mind? Probably not. They might have some great idea they need that cool Hello.com domain for.

Source: By Tech Ex