Google Acquires Microblogging Service Jaiku
Finnish short messaging and microblogging service Jaiku has been acquired by Google, the company says. That Google bought this competitor of Twitter, the service founded by Blogger founder Evan Williams, instead of Twitter is notable. Jaiku may be stronger on the mobile platform than Twitter and probably came at a much lower price.
Google has been rolling up no end of very young mobile services; while the comparison with the Dodgeball acquisition, which ended up going nowhere, is inevitable - I think there's a lot more going on this time around. For one thing, Jaiku will now have access to scaling that Twitter could desperately use.
For background on Jaiku, I recommend this video interview by the new European outfit Intruders.tv with company founder Jyri Engestrom, trained as a sociologist and formerly from Nokia.
RedMonk analyst James Governor, who has blogged extensively about the business value of Jaiku competitor Twitter and whose Twitter feed I learned about the acquisition from, has some interesting thoughts on the news. Governor says he'd like to see RIM buy Twitter but thinks Yahoo! is much more likely. He says the Jaiku mobile download could be a key addition to the Google Phone kernel but fears that all the leading microblogging services will be quickly overrun with commercial messages. I think that's a valid concern and worry that ads could drown out the links I Twitter promoting my blog posts. (Joking.) All of Twitter is lit up with conversation on the acquisition, according the the tracking service Twitterverse, the hottest word across Twitter in the last hour is Jaiku. There's more good discussion there than I can post here.
With easy group creation, RSS import and threaded conversation, amongst other features, Jaiku is probably a superior service to Twitter. Twitter's API and large US community offers its own advantages for some users. Unfortunately, new accounts have been throttled at Jaiku with news of the announcement. That seems like a move that's a bit hostile to the early adopter types who are following this news now and a real lost opportunity.
Update: Here's the official Google statement about this exciting news.
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"Finnish"?
Yes, the company is from Finland. Is that what you mean?
I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. All I can envision is Google Ads everywhere. I guess I should check out jaiku again for curiosity sake (I deleted my profile after a month).
Wow, great!
I'm excited by the unique position of microblogs and its vantage point at the nexus of the following:
1. Publishing: catalogues and reports >> website >> blog >> rss >> microblog
2. Written communication: letters >> memos & fax >> email >> IM >> microblog
3. Telephonic communication: telephone >> mobile >> VOIP and IPhone >> microblog
With IPhone plugins for Twitter, maybe this is an area for the GPhone too? Glad they chose Jaiku, prob the most serious of the microblogging tools. I still have some enterprise wishes for Jaiku, imagine employees who can never get away ;-) http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/16/17701.html
Yes, while I have some reservations about the deal (advertisements), I still am extremely happy for the Jaiku folks. I think you're absolutely right about scalability. Google search can also be used to search through and analyze presence streams. And of course, speculations about how Jaiku will fit in the grand GPhone plans are inevitable.
I am not happy. No wI will have to get rid of my account. Google is following me everywhere...
There you are eAm.
I'm really excited to see how this will fuel the evolution of the microblogging space, but I share j. brotherlove's concern about ad placement. But, to Google's credit that was everyone's concern about Gmail, and the ads couldn't be less intrusive.
Nice scoop on this! ;)
Marshall: I think this is very significant in regards the other rumor about Google introduction of the gPhone. Jaiku has a very strong mobile orientation having been funded and supporting Nokia S60 platforms for a number of months now.
In the end, I think this pushed the compass to their side compared to Twitter. Hopefully this will not be dodgeballed and they will be able to leverage and continue pushing the service.
This is the news that confirm the rumors: Gphone is near ;)
This is an interesting story. I wonder why they didnt purchase leaders Twitter or the new kid on the block Pownce?
I can't praise Jaiku highly enough.
It is a great service, with far superior functionality and community features, all wrapped up in a micro-blogging format - the one thing that it has not had (which is a fundamental element to micro-blogging) is a sizeable community like Twitter.
I genuinely hope that the purchase by Google of jaiku opens it up to many millions more people than Jaiku have been able to achieve thus far.
Why Jaiku instead of Twitter? Vision. Google bought up/into the vision of the founders of Jaiku.
Google buys up companies in order to buy in talent and insight.
Jaiku's founders have consistently demonstrated that they understand the underlying sociology of what they are doing and have been working at implementing a clear vision to serve that insight.
Twitter, on the other hand have always worked to give the impression that they just experimented and got lucky.
Google, looking to the future, is buying the company with the vision.
Thanks for all the really insightful comments here, readers - we really appreciate them. Keep 'em coming, this conversation is a great learning experience and your we thank you for your support.
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Thanks,
Alex
http://www.freedownloadpadfileurlsitesubmit.com
Well, good luck and let's hope it doesn't end like with Dodgeball!
nda
Great post and collection of comments. As usual Marshall/Read/Write Web has one of the most clear and essential distillations of the news.
From my point of view Google has made another good move as Jaiku seems to have a much more clear interface and, maybe, better chances to win European hearts. I would really like to test it! I wrote an article about Jaiku design: http://www.designvsart.com/blog/?p=58
While reading the post, I have came into awe towards the amount of the works that were already done (or which are still under the development) for to increase the publicity of our blogs. That inspires indeed, and I am convinced, all bloggers burn with the gratitude- thank you. Just one confuses me - I hear lots of advices on how to increase the traffic to our blogs, but no discussions on what do we discuss in our posts - are they worthy the sharing at all? Why "no comments" is the most typical follower of our writings. What for is the empty clicks?
Your post is the positive information - I thank you for it. My comments are just musing aloud on what we are searching for. Is it the wish to say something, or just a desire for more heavy traffic? What problems are raised up by the popular bloggers?
Of course, the questions on the place of morality in our works (the eternities) don’t fit the specifics of this newsletter and my struggles with the English (I am writing with the vocabulary) may look the needless, but is just one of us free from these questions? Is anywhere such place where spiritual questions would look the secondary? NO! Therefore I am writing to you.
Hello everyone!
Here's a Jaiku episode preview.
http://media.vascellari.com/?p=28
The Entire episode will be online 15th Oct. 2007. Stay tuned on http://media.vascellari.com
Andrea
Feels like watching a game of Pac Man, Google is just Gobling everything up???