SAY GOODBYE TO "HELLO"

SAY GOODBYE TO "HELLO"

Google waves sayonara to Hello
By Caroline McCarthy – May 9, 2008, 5:53 AM PDT



Later, gator.

Google has announced the shutdown of Hello, a sort of photo-messaging
service that became part of the Mountain View family when Google
acquired Picasa in 2004.

"All good things come to an end," a placeholder on the Hello,com home
page says. "So it is with sadness that we say goodbye to Hello." Guess
they weren't so sad that they felt the need to steer clear of goofy
plays on words. Hello will fade away on May 15, though Google's photo-
sharing service Picasa remains otherwise intact.

"We originally embarked on a mission to make photo sharing easier and
more fun with Hello," the message on the site explains. "We plan to
keep carrying that torch in new projects to come." That could be
interpreted as a hint that Hello's technology may be seen in future
Google projects--or not.

As Google Blogoscoped notes, Mountain View now has the domain
hello,com . And it's not like Larry, Sergey, and the gang need to sell
it for beer money.