LifeScape tests P2P photo sharing service

Lifescape, the makers of Picasa, are testing their P2P photo sharing service called Hello. They announced their intentions to offer a networked sharing service back at the DEMO 2003 conference in February. Hello consists of a client application that looks like it works stand-alone or in concert with Picasa. Since I have Picasa, it uses that interface for selecting images to share. You just put them in your picture tray and select Send Hello. Looks like the idea is to use Hello to make connections with Friends that you invite to share photos with through the hello application which includes an integrated IM/chat client. This is not exactly what I had in mind when it was described as "P2P photo sharing"; but I suspect there will be a variety of approaches (I'm still thinking RSS & syndication) for establishing direct channels between people/groups wanting to share photos.

The Hello application downloaded and installed seamlessly and did not require any reconfiguration of ports, firewalls, routers, etc. I just sent email invites to a few friends to see how it works in practice. If you try it and want to share with me, my Hello username is MJKBOSTON.