On Read/Write Web.

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped noticed today that Google announced that it will be shuttering its Hello photo sharing and chat application next week. Hello was an instant messenger-like desktop photo sharing application that made it easy to send photos to friends via an encrypted connection. The Hello.com web page has been replaced by a shut down notice and the service will cease to work on May 15th.

It’s probably the first time since I’m using webtools that I’m disappointed by a service shutdown. I’ve been using Picasa’s Hello to share pictures with my family for the last three years now. It works like a charm. My parents and in-laws were using it as well. Picasa & Hello were extra-user-friendly and smoothly integrated. It was a sort of one-click image sharing.

Of course, there are other ways to share images: Web galleries (including PicasaWeb), Instant Messaging. But the real deal with Hello was that the pictures sent to you were automatically added to your own Pictures Database. Not even a 1-click, … a 0-click.

R.I.P. Hello.