Recent performance would suggest: be just like Twitter. Well, of course Jaiku is going to be like Twitter -- they're very similar services. But I'm not sure if Google meant for Jaiku to be so much like Twitter, complete with a bunch of downtime and errors. I'm kidding, but seriously, what does Google have in store for Jaiku? Since acquiring the service three months ago, we hadn't heard a peep about the service from either company. Until yesterday when Jaiku co-founder Jyri Engeström posted an update on the company's blog.
But beyond assuring users that the team was working to fix the service issues, he didn't give much information about where the company is headed. "[We have] been working hard on the next steps for Jaiku, and are already making progress on what I think are some cool new ways to help you stay connected with the people you care about. We can’t share any of the specifics right now, but stay tuned," he wrote, rather cryptically.
"As for Jaiku, it appears to have fallen through the cracks at Google and is rapidly sinking as a result of neglect," wrote Ars Technica's Ryan Paul on Tuesday. "Unless Google takes some decisive action soon, the service might not retain its existing user base for much longer."
While Engström's blogged response disputes that Jaiku is being neglected, there is no doubt that the service has lost considerable ground to Twitter -- ground it can't afford to lose. According to Compete, Jaiku's traffic peaked in October 2007, around the time of the Google acquisition, but has fallen steadily since (off nearly 30% last month). Twitter, meanwhile, has continued gaining, up over 10% last month. Though Jaiku's traffic is still way up on the year, it is off since the Google purchase and the service still attracts just a tiny fraction of the visitors that Twitter does.
Can Jaiku ever catch Twitter in the presence app market (or Tumblr in the microblogging market, for that matter)? That seems unlikely. But that's also not what I surmise Google wants to do with Jaiku.
What really sets Jaiku apart from Twitter, is that it can aggregate and automatically republish stories from your other activity streams: blog posts, del.icio.us links, Flicker photos, even Twitter updates. In this regard, it is a lot like Tumblr (another service that has a huge lead on it traffic-wise). I think this is the part of Jaiku that Google was interested in when it purchased the site -- Jaiku as an activity stream aggregator, not Jaiku as a presence app.
We heard last summer about a Google sponsored project at Carnegie Mellon University called "Socialstream." Socialstream's goal was to "create a system for users to seamlessly share, view, and respond to many types of social content across multiple network." The idea was basically for Socialstream to be a hub for all of your social networking activity -- whether that was on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, or Flickr -- all of your attention data would be collected in one place where you could manage and share it.
This is an ambitious project, and to work it means that social networks need to embrace data portability -- something that we're seeing begin to happen right now (maybe). If the Data Portability Working Group actually realizes their goals, and social networks tear down the garden walls and let users export their data, and if I'm right about Google's plans for Jaiku (which, I'll point out, is complete speculation on my part), then Jaiku could become a very important service this year.
What do you think? Would it make sense for Google to take Jaiku in this direction? Or have I completely lost it? Let us know in the comments below.
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Why do Finnish people have the coolest names? They sound like Second Life names.
I was thinking about Jaiku this morning, wondering if Google had bought the wrong company. Perhaps not. I think this sort of social-profile connected messaging is going to be one of the big stories of 2008.
On the geek side of the spectrum, I think we'll see a huge resurgence of interest in Jabber. I remember everyone talking about messaging and presence back in 2001 - there was just no open infrastructure at that time to make it interesting.
Posted by: Ray Grieselhuber | January 10, 2008 1:54 PMAlso remember that Jaiku has a mobile client app, that aims to replace your phone contact list and give you information about the state of your contact's phone and their latest presence update, not just their phone number. This sounds to me like a very interesting feature for Android phones, where your phone could give you information about location, latest status update and phone status of your friends directly in the contact list application, and also send these updates about you to a general, google service tied-in presence stream that forms part of a "news feed" about yourself and your contacts.
Just my 2 cents.
/Andie
Posted by: Andie Nordgren | January 10, 2008 2:12 PMRemember that Jaiku is still invite only...
Posted by: Emil | January 10, 2008 3:19 PMI agree with you Josh. Three months it's a long time.
Posted by: Luis Figueiredo | January 10, 2008 3:47 PMLike everybody I've joined Jaiku after the news of Google's acquisition.
The lack of news until now from Jaiku or Google spells trouble in my book.
But let's wait and see.
I think Andie's on the right track.
Mash up the social links of SocialStream with the simplicity of the (frustratingly desktop-only) GoogleTalk, the power of the java Gmail client, plus MyLocation in Google's Mobile Maps with the presence managing and status messaging of Jaiku and you're onto a winner!
Get halfway there, as a proper S60 app and I'll be cheering!
Posted by: HeavyLightIt seems very out of character for Google to leave one of their acquisitions untouched for so long. Are they losing their touch?
Posted by: Erica DeWolf | January 10, 2008 7:38 PMActually this is fairly common behavior on google's part.
Posted by: David Krug | January 10, 2008 9:22 PMI agree with David, remember JotSpot? They still haven't done anything with it after the acquisition. Well, at least they haven't made their plans public.
Posted by: Amit | January 11, 2008 12:24 AMJaiku sounds terrible in Chinese (rhymes with "am crying")...
Posted by: Wojai | January 11, 2008 1:20 AMI definitely agree that google was more interested in the feed aggregation side of Jaiku. When I came across Jaiku a while back, the much more interesting piece of their software was combining your feeds. This was about the same time as yahoo pipes and such. While the buzz about those services have seemed to die out a bit, I think it will only pick back up as more services become open (facebook especially would be huge). This kind of data aggregation and processing is much more in like with Google's core strengths than mere presence.
I also agree with Andie that the mobile component was also a strong motivating factor.
Posted by: Randal | January 11, 2008 3:15 AM