Hello, or Hullo

When Google bought Picasa, as well as the photo organizer, there was a second program that the company also produced - an instant messaging client (with photo sharing) called Hello.  That program is still available for download, at Hello.com, though it's not been updated for a long time.  (The current version is 1.0, build 651, and this dates from before the Google purchase - it has not even been updated with any mention of Google - all the email and web addresses it refers to are of the form picasa.net).

Google has gone on to produce its own instant messaging client in the form of Google Talk, which offers so much more - including voice calls, voicemail, file transfer, music trends, and integration with email.  The one Hello feature it is missing is integration with Picasa.

Interestingly, though somewhat inappropriately, the Ask blog search lists googlehello.com as a Top Feed when searching for "picasa".  Googlehello.com looks like a blog about the Hello program, but this was last updated in November 2004 (in fact all content seems to date from the same day!)  I can't see what definition of "top feeds" that would fall into.

It's clear that Google still dont really know what to do with Hello - but they are at least continuing to allow it to be used.

(... and as a postscript, an unrelated service called Hullo has just launched, which indicates that the real value in Hello may be its domain name.  Hullo is a VOIP service, providing free phone calls - there's more comment to be found at TechCrunch and an informative despite itself piece I rather like at Dead2.0.  I think it likely that due to the confusion in names, Hello may get a bit more publicity and interest out of this).