I just found out today that the HELLO instant messenger service operated by Picasa (now owned by Google) will be shutting down on May 15th, 2008 June 11th 2008.

Unfortunately, I only found this out today (Monday, May 12th, 2008) by accident. I didn’t receive any email notice from the HELLO team about the service shutting down. Clicking any of the help links in the software brings you to the HELLO homepage.

This website was created as a last ditch effort to hopefully reach someone at Google to get them to keep this GREAT instant messenger service going. There truly is no instant messenger out like it.

My colleagues and I use HELLO every single day, all day long to stay in touch, share photos and screenshots instantly and to generally stay connected during our busy workdays. It has been our preferred way to communicate for several years now.

I’m hoping that I’m not the only one that desperately wants the HELLO service to stay active.

Although the HELLO service is free, the value that we’ve received from the service is priceless. We’ve never needed support. The software just “works”. I, for one, would be willing to pay for the HELLO instant messaging service to keep it active.

What you can do:

I don’t know if others are in the same boat, but I’m asking those of you who use HELLO daily to post in the comments below and hopefully we can get someone at Google to rethink the cancellation of this great service.

Also, please DIGG this story so hopefully we can get more attention drawn to this great service loss.

EDIT May 14 6:07PM: Thanks to commenter Melanie Morales for pointing out that HELLO has revised the homepage to note that the deadline for shutdown is now extended to June 11th. Hopefully that gives us more time to change their minds

Swooping in like a super hero to save the day, Hello (again) has arrived.

Although it’s just in its very early beta stages, Hello (again) looks like it could be the Hello alternative so many of us have been waiting for. Now that the Google Picasa HELLO service is shutting down tomorrow (June 11, 2008), those of us that want an easy photo sharing instant messenger may have something to look forward to.

I spoke with The Janitor (yes, The Janitor…with a capital J) of the HelloAgainApp.com site briefly via email to get more information about this new photo sharing instant messenger program.

Let’s call it an interview:

savehello.org: How did Hello (again) get started?

The Janitor: Hello (again) has been set up and funded by someone who wishes to remain anonymous, however they have experience of setting up large websites (>1m pageviews/day) and may or may not be getting help from Google/Picassa employees who are disenfranchised that Hello is being dropped.

SH: How will Hello (again) work?

TJ: With regard to how ‘Hello (again)’ will operate, it’s on a peer to peer basis.

The only information Hello (again) will store about a user is their login, email address, name, password and a flag to indicate that on signup they accepted the terms and conditions.

In addition to this information, Hello (again) will also keep on it’s servers a ‘buddy list’ for each user - it would be foolish to keep this information client side.

When one user sends a message or picture to another user this picture or text goes directly from one user to another, it does not go via Hello (again) servers. This being the case Hello (again) does not store, receive, log or even see messages or images being sent between the users.

SH: Thanks for that info. I’m sure that will help the privacy concerns some folks may have with the new software.

SH: As the janitor of the site, will you keep the code clean?

TJ: My role has yet to be firmed up, but I expect I will be dusting the servers from time to time.

SH: Will you be trying to mimic the interface of HELLO as much as possible?

TJ: The idea of Hello (again) is not to copy HELLO per se, so the user interface will not be exactly the same. The main ideas, drag ‘n drop, etc, will be carried forward but the idea is to build upon, and improve, what was done by HELLO.

Certainly the initial release will not look nice, though we hope the UI will be intuitive.

SH: Will Hello (again) work on a MAC and a PC?

TJ: Hello (again) will be available on a Mac. It’ll also be available on Windows, Linux, Unix, iPhones, most mobile/cell phones and RISC OS.

SH: When do you expect the first PUBLIC Beta testing for your new software and service?

TJ: The first public beta is now live. *PLEASE* remember this is an EARLY BETA. We’re only putting it up so that you have something to use when Hello dies tomorrow. We do NOT consider this any where near finished.

Here’s the BETA download link: http://www.helloagainapp.com/download.php

Here’s the Hello (again) forum: http://www.helloagainapp.com/forum/index.php

Enjoy!

Since I started this site on May 12, 2008, there have been over 250 comments asking Google not to shut down the HELLO instant messenger.

In an attempt to help get our voices heard, my plan is to print out all the comments on June 1st and have them fedexed to Google (attention the Picasa/HELLO) department. Be sure to get your comments in before then!

Printing out 250+ comments would take a lot of ink and paper, so in an effort to minimize the environmental impact, I plan to have the petition ecoprinted. Which means I basically plan to use a service I found on the web that does environmentally responsible printing with recycled paper and vegetable oil inks.

It would be great if this digital petition and blog were enough to get the attention of Google, but sometimes it takes more.

I also wrote an email to idealab, the company that sold Picasa and Hello to Google in 2004. I suggested that they buy back HELLO from Google and continue their original vision of creating a super simple photo sharing software. I also suggested that they think ahead of the curve and launch the first subscription based instant messenger service. HELLO has the best interface and it seems the demand may be there. In these past couple of weeks, I’ve realized that I’m not alone in realizing that I would pay money to use the HELLO service.

If anybody from Google is out there reading this, feel free to contact me for an official comment.

Lupe Fiasco’s album came out recently and track 15 seems to be a great soundtrack for the savehello.org cause. It’s called: Hello/Goodbye [uncool]