Last night, I read that Google has recently shut down their service called ‘Hello.’ While I personally never used it, I think it has a really great fundamental concept.

When I was living in China from 2005-2006, I posted a lot of photos on my Flickr. And then I would call my mom on Skype, and listen to her reaction and opinions as she looked through them. The problem is, my mother, being that she is my mother, she often gets really excited about stuff I do/create/write. The pictures I take are no exception.

So, when out of a set of dozens of pictures, I hear her suddenly go OOOOoooooHhhh! and start wildly praising me, I really want to know which one she got so enthusiastic about.

Then the process begins:

“Which one are you looking at?”
“The one with THE GREAT WALL!”
“Right, yeah, which one? There are a lot of those.”
“The one where it snakes off into the distance…”
“Right, Mom, but that’s ALL OF THEM.

And that’s what ‘Hello’ did. It make sure you guys were always seeing looking at the same page.

Although I might have occasionally used this if it was integrated with Flickr, I’ll tell you where I would REALLY LOVE to see this kind of application: On Facebook. Where else?

For me, I currently have no reason to use Facebook chat, so I leave it off all of the time. Sure, I have a lot of people Facebooked, but I mainly just to keep in contact with a rather large number of people. But all of my closest friends and the handful of colleagues and peers with whom I communicate on a regular basis, will already know (at least) 8-10 other, more effective ways to get in touch with me.

HOWEVER.

As loyal as I am to Flickr, I haven’t been doing much professional photography these days, and I primarily use Facebook to post all of personal photos.

It would be amaaaazing if that new chat feature on Facebook allowed two people to choose to connect over chat and effectively “get on the same page.” That way, instead of pasting links to photos back and forth on instant messenger, you’ll both will just be looking at the same thing.

The technology is already there. The chat has seems to have been smoothly implemented, unlike some of their past “features.” (BEACON, I’m glaring at you!) It seems like it would be simple and easy to just add this on.

Facebook, are you listening? The door may have closed for ‘Hello,’ but it could be a window of opportunity for you.

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