I've read several articles about a new service from Hullo in the past few days. It's worthy of note, although I don't see sustainable conversation over the long haul. I'd talked with Alec Saunders about this a while back and, for me, it sounded better in talk than it looks right now. You be the judge.

The problem Ihave with a lot of free services is that they seem to be worth every penny. Here's what some other folks had to say:

Alec Saunders comments (extracted from his full post)

Installing the software is simple.  Simply visit hullo.com, and click on download. It does the usual things installers do.  Because I’m a bit of a legalities nut, I actually read their lengthy license agreement, which, unusually, includes a confidentiality provision.  I installed the software in spite of it, concluding that since hullo was public beta, it wasn’t confidential anymore.   The installer will pull down the .NET runtime if you haven’t already loaded it, so be patient.
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Using hullo is dead simple.  Simply click one of your contacts, and click call.  If the contact is also a hullo user, it will use the findme features to hunt that contact down.  Otherwise it will simply ring that persons number. Want to add someone to a call?  Just drag them into the current call window, and hullo will call them and add them to the call.  Want to transfer the call to another of your phones?  Just select a phone.
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The company is focusing their launch on the college and high school crowd.  The features have been designed recognizing that young people are increasingly the most sophisticated users of mobile phones. 
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What’s missing? Instant messaging and presence. For now the focus seems to be solely on voice.
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With a little luck, viral adoption, and good marketing, hullo could easily surpass Skype and Gizmo in North American usage.

I tend to disagree with Alec. I think the lack of instant messaging and presence are fatal flaws for something new at this point in technology evolution. And I don't think viral marketing will make this any more than a niche for the non-business crowd, There's too much substance missing.

Phoneboy is less impressed in Hullo?

My big complaint with this "service" is that it relies on an application on a Windows PC.

Dameon says he'll probably not use it much until there's a Mac client. Frankly, until there's a mobile client, I can't find a fit. Why do I need a client at all. I think this .NET runtime is going to prove problematic in the long haul. Perhaps in a next generation where it becomes a web app it will catch on.

Om Malik really just points to Alec and Phoneboy's posts, but agrees with me in one principle.

We would love to see a web based implementation of this, totally devoid of any installs.

For my money, I didn't do the install. I couldn't see enough value for me to give it a whirl, Another way to look at that is that it failed the blink test - I blinked and it looked less worthwhile.

I wish the Hullo team lots of luck. I'm sure it will be a hit in the younger space it's playing to. I don't see a business application that makes sense and I don't see a good return on effort in the niche. Like my friends at jangl, I'll watch Hullo, but I'm not diving in.


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