We need to generate some Buzz. Jaiku generally wins on features and experience, but Twitter just has the 'zeitgeist'.
My thoughts as to why:
1. 'Big name' bloggers on Twitter give the platform profile. Also tend to use Twitter to live blog noteworthy events.
2. Volume of users means 'news' tends to break on Twitter. Which attracts more users etc, etc.
3. Life streaming features of Jaiku can make it look a bit jumbled to those not familiar - Twitter can appear to be simpler to use / 'purer'.
I think there are a couple of things we can do around each of these points - input with the Jaiku team would also help. I'm thinking of setting up a brainstorming session online.
Anyone have further ideas - need to focus on breaking down why Twitter has 'buzz' and Jaiku currently doesn't.
I really do believe that Jaiku + Google has the potential to be an amazing service. Google are juggling so much in the social network space, it's going to take time. In the meantime I want to do what we can to raise the profile.
Here's another thought - you know how responsive the Jaiku guys generally have been to feature requests, user input etc.
What would be really cool is to explore ideas for Jaiku integration with Google services - could help G to see the opportunities / value of the service.
whatleydude asks a good question..does google want to create a buzz over jaiku, if they don't we're all waisting our time, swimming in glue. Google recently teamed up with twitter for supper mad Tuesday or whatever it was called in the US, which was strange.
I think we all agree it's a better experience, but jonmul also hit a nail on the head..scoble, calacanis, winer, are all on twitter...that's where it's at for the tech bloggers. But they are only a handfull, and it takes the facebook massed to make a product successful.
I still think the killer thing with jaiku is the presence and that's not being exploited enough, I think Nokia missed the boat, what would this be like if jaiku was the default contact app on all S60 devices...anyway..
leolaporte had a point, Jaiku being down didn't make any of the tech news sites ( as far as I saw) and that's not a good sign.
something has to be happening with Jaiku and as jonmul has alluded to, it may be it's inclusion in Android, if it isn't I'd dread to think.
Having seen android i foot think thats it ... Presence seems quite easy as well given what i saw between yahoo and a startup or two. I have no idea what google is up to here but its an excellent question.
As everyone keeps saying to us about our business, the key to success is distribution. Forget viral, Jaiku currently has no "routes to market". The user lockdown (apart from invites) is a serious problem but there are bigger problems.
How to fix? Simple example - Jaiku widget (input/output) for Orkut or Blogger available by default to that entire userbase via their Google logins - instant huge growth. I'd love to see the growth curve for GTalk pre/post GMail integration to prove that point.
There are still more interesting people working in mobile hanging out here than on Twitter (or like Pat, hanging out in both). Even if that demographic was targetted more, it'd help a lot.
Also doing lightweight partnering with the likes of Qik/Seesmic etc to at least have parity with Twitter in that area.
I'd like to know whether Jaiku is actually a Google purchase or merely a purchase funded by a Google employee. If the latter, there probably isn't a funded roadmap from Google for Jaiku and that means we are lost.
a jaiku blogfest..there are some influential bloggers here everyone writes a "why I love jaiku" post on the same day..jaiku day..when is jaikus birthday btw?
write a jaiku book..a story written by people on jaiku in 140 character chunks could be funny, agree a basic plot, some key must have characters to tie it together and then let rip.
@topgold - there isn't yet mate. S'funny, something that originally started out as a few (non-industry and industry) blokes meeting up after work over a beer to exchange ideas has slowly taken on a life of it's own. I think I might have to have a re-think after this one. Don't want to over-brand it and don't want to take it too seriously either, it's good because it's a bit 'underground' if that makes sense? All I've got is a facebook page/group at the moment - guess I might need a bit more in the future.
Coming back to your question.. I'm sure that we'll have an 'official' (it's normally whoever sets one up first) Jaiku thread on the night as well as various qiks etc.. :)
@whatleydude haven't been following this thread, so didn't know we had a plan. Been thinking for a while about posting about Jaiku, just seemed the right time after having the server outage and looking for alternatives that day.
Reading one of whatleydudes posts yesterday about how the users need to raise the awareness of Jaiku has given me pause to think about how and why it’s used. Unlike most of the people who seem to be around on Jaiku right now, I’m not in the mobile industry and I’m not a professional geek, at least not any more. I’m looking at these things from the point of view of a regular, if rather enthusiastic, user of technology. Most of my friends are either fairly geeky or actually geeks themselves, so they’re a reasonable gauge of the market that Jaiku’s probably aiming at.
I was asked, for a different reason, this morning about my use of mobile technology and experience with it, and it was interesting to think about how long I’ve been doing this so I’ll drop it in here for those that don’t know me to give you a little background.
I've been using mobile phones since 1988 (when I borrowed my dad's 'portable' for a couple of events I was involved in) and have had my own in my bag since '91 when they were the size of a housebrick and weighed about the same. I've been a Macintosh evangelist since my first powerbook 100 back in 1992 and a user of laptops as my personal machine ever since, working my way through most iterations of the powerbook line. The only tower systems I’ve had at home have been as servers or ones that my employer has required me to have.
I early adopted more portable mobile technology using HP palmtops, bits of bell wire, a leatherman and electrical tape to get connected through my old IBM-global email account in places as diverse as dodgy hotels in Nigeria and Angola to luxury pads in San Francisco. I figured out how to get email using the dial up satellite phone on my ship in the mid 90's and generally tend to stay as connected as I'm able. Currently my N95 8Gb is changing the way I interact with the world quite dramatically, being able to update my blog and flickr accounts from anywhere. I've lived in 4 different countries and travelled the world, taking a keen interest in how modern technology is changing people's lives for both better and worse. I've been blogging online in one form or another since around 1996, using twitter since it started and recently been playing with jaiku.
This new concept of very mobile microblogging is obviously changing how we connect with our social groups and expanding the network of people we know and keep in touch with very rapidly. No technology I’ve seen before has connected me with new people around the world as fast Jaiku has done. So, how do they compare from this users point of view, and how am I likely to consider using them from here on.
Firstly, twitter. I’ve been using this since not long after it started. I find it very convenient for arranging meets, passing on information that people might need in a hurry (they’ve closed the victoria line northbound, you might want to think of alternative routes on your way home from work etc) or passing on snippets of news. I don’t have conversations on twitter really, other than firing back the odd reply to a request or question, it’s not something I use to blog my life, I find the 140 character limit to be too small for the sort of blog posts I produce. I like that it notifies me when there’s something I need to know about. To use the tube line closure example, having my phone beep and tell me something like that is very handy if you’re about to leave for work, as it means perhaps taking a bus instead of walking to the tube station to find out it’s closed. Yes, I could and would use the tfl planner but not if I’m already in town. It gives me early warning and saves time.
Short messages about someone’s mood will brighten my day: hearing that a friend is spending lunch spinning poi in a park while it’s sunny will make me smile knowing that they’re happy. It’s simple, it doesn’t take too much time, I can ignore them if I need to and, as my friends don’t spend too much time on it as they’re generally working or doing other things, it doesn’t get overloaded with traffic, making it manageable. Because it’s a more ‘personal’ service in the way I use it, it’s of less interest to people who are not in my close social circle as there’s not much that would affect them or be of use to them, which means that I doubt if my twitter list will grow much beyond my local London circle of friends. If one of them sends out a twitter, it’s generally something of note that’s worth reading at that time. Unless of course it’s whatleydude, in which case it could be the fractured pieces of a dozen conversations bombarding you throughout the day ;-P. Trying to make sense of those, or figure out their context is often highly intriguing.
For me Twitter isn’t really a microblogging site as I see it, it’s a social network and interaction tool. That said, this could just be because of the way I choose to use it.
jaiku on the other hand is very different to twitter in my view. I’ve been using it for a few weeks, but only really started to ‘power’ use it in the last few days, and it’s exhausting. Even with just a dozen or so contacts, the traffic overhead is huge. Yesterday, while working on something at home I became distracted by a thread going by on jaiku and suddenly 3 hours had disappeared from my day. No harm done really, but if I was working in an office, my productivity would drop like the proverbial acme anvil.
That said, it was an extremely interesting day, topics covered on the various threads ranged across a wide spectrum and reading various comments caused me to add several new people to my jaiku network, as the things they wrote piqued my interest and I found myself interested to hear what they had to say on other subjects. It was kind of like floating through a party picking up snippets of conversation and stopping to join in when something interesting caught your ear. Through that you become involved and later on swap contact details with people you’d like to get to know better.
As a way of growing your social network it’s remarkable. This comes at a cost though: Time. To actively engage in these threads you have to follow them and, with the number of people who can be involved at any one time, you need to pay reasonably close attention to what’s being said or it will take you 20 minutes following back to see where the direction of the conversation has been.
Jaiku seems much more akin to an instant messenger system using group conversations. Given that I was introduced to jaiku from a mobile point of view, I find it hard to believe that anyone would follow one of the larger threads comfortably on a mobile device. Yesterday’s thread was so involved and fast moving that I was typing on my laptop and watching the thread through my instant messenger. Trying to type at that speed on N95 would be almost impossible for me without an external keyboard.
Unless you call up jaiku through a web browser you’re not going to follow a busy thread very easily, unless everyone contributing is on your contact list. Just using the mobile client to get updates on it will, as far as I can see, only give you the pieces written by your contacts, which can become confusing.
For microblogging, Jaiku seems quite similar to twitter, except that you decide when you wish to retrieve any messages. On a busy day though you might never be able to back up to see all the things you’ve missed, and the important piece of knowledge such as the tube closure, or the accident at Hangar Lane will slip past you unnoticed.
There are a large number of passionate users on Jaiku who are spreading the gospel as fast as they can. It attracts the sort of evangelical geeks who do that. You couldn’t afford to pay for the publicity a group like this can generate, at least a small start up of this sort couldn’t. But it’s not enough to target a bunch of geeks, if you want to move forward you need the regular Joe to buy into it. Right now, I don’t think they’re prepared to make that sort of commitment. It takes too much time to follow. If you’re working in an office, how do you justify keeping up with your work while following Jaiku. I’d be really interested to hear how people manage the volume of data that jaiku generates in their working day. Do you use instant messenger, jaiku webpage, mobile client?
Jonathan Mulholland <a href="http://jonathanmulholland.com/2007/11/19/what-google-has-planned-for-jaiku/">wrote an interesting piece</a> recently about his thoughts on why Google bought Jaiku, primarily for the presence enabling ability that it brings to mobile handsets. This sounds very feasible given the ability to target ads in the way he describes. If that’s the case, then it’s nothing to do with microblogging and they may never support that. I’m sure google has it’s plans for microblogging, it’s becoming increasingly common and they’ve shown repeatedly that they’ll invest in any new technology that they think promising, but perhaps it’s more likely that it will just be rolled into android than kept separate as Jaiku currently is. If this is what they do, where does it leave the current Jaiku users who prefer a different handset OS.
The other thing is, do the general public want to blog as solidly as you would need to make microblogging take off in the mainstream? Assuming you have a reasonable number of contacts it’s going to take a while to follow their updates so you might just end up doing what we currently do with twitter, which is to post some short notes about your day.
The last few days have really surprised me as to just how much time people evidently spend on Jaiku, I can’t imagine the average phone user taking that much of their day to connect with people.
Right, I’m not sure I’ve come to any reasonable conclusion, perhaps because I need more time to watch jaiku. For now, twitter is a very useful and valued service to me, or it would be once it stays a little more stable and reliable. Jaiku has a lot of promise, it’s just I still don’t think I’ve realised what that promise is.
35 comments so far
Sounds like a plan. I'm in.
A few notes from me - I've been working on a blog post on this for a while (you keep hitting the notes better than I do, hence no sign of it yet)...
...It'd be nice if we could get some more info/advice/input from the Jaiku dudes themselves and finallu..
..can you get to Mobile Geeks of London?
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
Seems like an issue of inertia ... Compared to twitter anyway. Not a feature or experience battle clearly
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
@atmasphere makes a good point.
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
Keeping it private without updates or communications makes it hard to expand... :(
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
But at least it's up and working 99% of the time. Also looks and functionality is 1000% better than Twitter.
1 year, 4 months ago by adonisdemon
@jonmul - what you got in mind?
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
We need to generate some Buzz. Jaiku generally wins on features and experience, but Twitter just has the 'zeitgeist'.
My thoughts as to why: 1. 'Big name' bloggers on Twitter give the platform profile. Also tend to use Twitter to live blog noteworthy events. 2. Volume of users means 'news' tends to break on Twitter. Which attracts more users etc, etc. 3. Life streaming features of Jaiku can make it look a bit jumbled to those not familiar - Twitter can appear to be simpler to use / 'purer'.
I think there are a couple of things we can do around each of these points - input with the Jaiku team would also help. I'm thinking of setting up a brainstorming session online.
Anyone have further ideas - need to focus on breaking down why Twitter has 'buzz' and Jaiku currently doesn't.
1 year, 4 months ago by jonmul
Question: Does Jaiku (read: 'Google') want the buzz?
Hard to create something when the owners don't seem to be over-inclined to assist...
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
I really do believe that Jaiku + Google has the potential to be an amazing service. Google are juggling so much in the social network space, it's going to take time. In the meantime I want to do what we can to raise the profile.
1 year, 4 months ago by jonmul
Here's another thought - you know how responsive the Jaiku guys generally have been to feature requests, user input etc.
What would be really cool is to explore ideas for Jaiku integration with Google services - could help G to see the opportunities / value of the service.
1 year, 4 months ago by jonmul
whatleydude asks a good question..does google want to create a buzz over jaiku, if they don't we're all waisting our time, swimming in glue. Google recently teamed up with twitter for supper mad Tuesday or whatever it was called in the US, which was strange.
I think we all agree it's a better experience, but jonmul also hit a nail on the head..scoble, calacanis, winer, are all on twitter...that's where it's at for the tech bloggers. But they are only a handfull, and it takes the facebook massed to make a product successful.
I still think the killer thing with jaiku is the presence and that's not being exploited enough, I think Nokia missed the boat, what would this be like if jaiku was the default contact app on all S60 devices...anyway..
leolaporte had a point, Jaiku being down didn't make any of the tech news sites ( as far as I saw) and that's not a good sign.
something has to be happening with Jaiku and as jonmul has alluded to, it may be it's inclusion in Android, if it isn't I'd dread to think.
1 year, 4 months ago by robevans
Having seen android i foot think thats it ... Presence seems quite easy as well given what i saw between yahoo and a startup or two. I have no idea what google is up to here but its an excellent question.
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
Foot = don't
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
I also noticed that, unlike the last time jaiku had issues, there was no mention of the nearly 24 hrs of downtime yesterday on any sites.
1 year, 4 months ago by rcadden
Outside of twitter ...
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
I'd be happy if the Jaiku Mobile app had Gtalk and IM included.
1 year, 4 months ago by gerrymoth
As everyone keeps saying to us about our business, the key to success is distribution. Forget viral, Jaiku currently has no "routes to market". The user lockdown (apart from invites) is a serious problem but there are bigger problems.
How to fix? Simple example - Jaiku widget (input/output) for Orkut or Blogger available by default to that entire userbase via their Google logins - instant huge growth. I'd love to see the growth curve for GTalk pre/post GMail integration to prove that point.
There are still more interesting people working in mobile hanging out here than on Twitter (or like Pat, hanging out in both). Even if that demographic was targetted more, it'd help a lot.
Also doing lightweight partnering with the likes of Qik/Seesmic etc to at least have parity with Twitter in that area.
1 year, 4 months ago by conoro
I've grown into 'hanging out in both' lately. But Jaiku is my micro-blog of choice definitely.
I just wish we had a clearer vision of the roadmap since they were bought.
(and I know this isn't really possible but still, one can wish)
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
And for the record - I'm still up for @jonmul's original idea. We just need some Jaiku buy-in..
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
There's a road map?
1 year, 4 months ago by atmasphere
I'd like to know whether Jaiku is actually a Google purchase or merely a purchase funded by a Google employee. If the latter, there probably isn't a funded roadmap from Google for Jaiku and that means we are lost.
1 year, 4 months ago by topgold
I'll throw in my idea's to raise the profile..
a jaiku blogfest..there are some influential bloggers here everyone writes a "why I love jaiku" post on the same day..jaiku day..when is jaikus birthday btw?
write a jaiku book..a story written by people on jaiku in 140 character chunks could be funny, agree a basic plot, some key must have characters to tie it together and then let rip.
1 year, 4 months ago by robevans
I like @robevans suggestions - the first one especially.
Jaiku blog fest.
Who's in?
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
Also - @Jonmul, you're in like, what? Reading?
Dude - you should SO come to Mobile Geeks of London.
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
@robevans: July 14th, 2006?
1 year, 4 months ago by map
I also like the @robevans Jaiku blog fest. And is there an upcoming feed for MGoL?
1 year, 4 months ago by topgold
@topgold - there isn't yet mate. S'funny, something that originally started out as a few (non-industry and industry) blokes meeting up after work over a beer to exchange ideas has slowly taken on a life of it's own. I think I might have to have a re-think after this one. Don't want to over-brand it and don't want to take it too seriously either, it's good because it's a bit 'underground' if that makes sense? All I've got is a facebook page/group at the moment - guess I might need a bit more in the future.
Coming back to your question.. I'm sure that we'll have an 'official' (it's normally whoever sets one up first) Jaiku thread on the night as well as various qiks etc.. :)
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
Count me in for the Jaiku Blogfest! It's a shame @Teemu or @Jyri won't/can't comment on this thread.
1 year, 4 months ago by ocifant
Count me in on the blogfest. I'o good for blogger and Vox
1 year, 4 months ago by Philhellene
Gerrymoth has just delivered the goods.. albeit a bit prematurely..
:p
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
Link - http://gerrymoth.vox.com/library/post/mobile-social-networking.html
1 year, 4 months ago by whatleydude
@whatleydude haven't been following this thread, so didn't know we had a plan. Been thinking for a while about posting about Jaiku, just seemed the right time after having the server outage and looking for alternatives that day.
1 year, 4 months ago by gerrymoth
@gerrymoth
1 year, 4 months ago by jonmul
Enjoyed your blog post. Watch this thread for some ideas on promoting Jaiku - coming soon!
1 year, 4 months ago by jonmul
Twitter vs Jaiku and the microblogging world
Reading one of whatleydudes posts yesterday about how the users need to raise the awareness of Jaiku has given me pause to think about how and why it’s used. Unlike most of the people who seem to be around on Jaiku right now, I’m not in the mobile industry and I’m not a professional geek, at least not any more. I’m looking at these things from the point of view of a regular, if rather enthusiastic, user of technology. Most of my friends are either fairly geeky or actually geeks themselves, so they’re a reasonable gauge of the market that Jaiku’s probably aiming at.
I was asked, for a different reason, this morning about my use of mobile technology and experience with it, and it was interesting to think about how long I’ve been doing this so I’ll drop it in here for those that don’t know me to give you a little background.
I've been using mobile phones since 1988 (when I borrowed my dad's 'portable' for a couple of events I was involved in) and have had my own in my bag since '91 when they were the size of a housebrick and weighed about the same. I've been a Macintosh evangelist since my first powerbook 100 back in 1992 and a user of laptops as my personal machine ever since, working my way through most iterations of the powerbook line. The only tower systems I’ve had at home have been as servers or ones that my employer has required me to have.
I early adopted more portable mobile technology using HP palmtops, bits of bell wire, a leatherman and electrical tape to get connected through my old IBM-global email account in places as diverse as dodgy hotels in Nigeria and Angola to luxury pads in San Francisco. I figured out how to get email using the dial up satellite phone on my ship in the mid 90's and generally tend to stay as connected as I'm able. Currently my N95 8Gb is changing the way I interact with the world quite dramatically, being able to update my blog and flickr accounts from anywhere. I've lived in 4 different countries and travelled the world, taking a keen interest in how modern technology is changing people's lives for both better and worse. I've been blogging online in one form or another since around 1996, using twitter since it started and recently been playing with jaiku.
This new concept of very mobile microblogging is obviously changing how we connect with our social groups and expanding the network of people we know and keep in touch with very rapidly. No technology I’ve seen before has connected me with new people around the world as fast Jaiku has done. So, how do they compare from this users point of view, and how am I likely to consider using them from here on.
Firstly, twitter. I’ve been using this since not long after it started. I find it very convenient for arranging meets, passing on information that people might need in a hurry (they’ve closed the victoria line northbound, you might want to think of alternative routes on your way home from work etc) or passing on snippets of news. I don’t have conversations on twitter really, other than firing back the odd reply to a request or question, it’s not something I use to blog my life, I find the 140 character limit to be too small for the sort of blog posts I produce. I like that it notifies me when there’s something I need to know about. To use the tube line closure example, having my phone beep and tell me something like that is very handy if you’re about to leave for work, as it means perhaps taking a bus instead of walking to the tube station to find out it’s closed. Yes, I could and would use the tfl planner but not if I’m already in town. It gives me early warning and saves time.
Short messages about someone’s mood will brighten my day: hearing that a friend is spending lunch spinning poi in a park while it’s sunny will make me smile knowing that they’re happy. It’s simple, it doesn’t take too much time, I can ignore them if I need to and, as my friends don’t spend too much time on it as they’re generally working or doing other things, it doesn’t get overloaded with traffic, making it manageable. Because it’s a more ‘personal’ service in the way I use it, it’s of less interest to people who are not in my close social circle as there’s not much that would affect them or be of use to them, which means that I doubt if my twitter list will grow much beyond my local London circle of friends. If one of them sends out a twitter, it’s generally something of note that’s worth reading at that time. Unless of course it’s whatleydude, in which case it could be the fractured pieces of a dozen conversations bombarding you throughout the day ;-P. Trying to make sense of those, or figure out their context is often highly intriguing.
For me Twitter isn’t really a microblogging site as I see it, it’s a social network and interaction tool. That said, this could just be because of the way I choose to use it.
jaiku on the other hand is very different to twitter in my view. I’ve been using it for a few weeks, but only really started to ‘power’ use it in the last few days, and it’s exhausting. Even with just a dozen or so contacts, the traffic overhead is huge. Yesterday, while working on something at home I became distracted by a thread going by on jaiku and suddenly 3 hours had disappeared from my day. No harm done really, but if I was working in an office, my productivity would drop like the proverbial acme anvil.
That said, it was an extremely interesting day, topics covered on the various threads ranged across a wide spectrum and reading various comments caused me to add several new people to my jaiku network, as the things they wrote piqued my interest and I found myself interested to hear what they had to say on other subjects. It was kind of like floating through a party picking up snippets of conversation and stopping to join in when something interesting caught your ear. Through that you become involved and later on swap contact details with people you’d like to get to know better.
As a way of growing your social network it’s remarkable. This comes at a cost though: Time. To actively engage in these threads you have to follow them and, with the number of people who can be involved at any one time, you need to pay reasonably close attention to what’s being said or it will take you 20 minutes following back to see where the direction of the conversation has been.
Jaiku seems much more akin to an instant messenger system using group conversations. Given that I was introduced to jaiku from a mobile point of view, I find it hard to believe that anyone would follow one of the larger threads comfortably on a mobile device. Yesterday’s thread was so involved and fast moving that I was typing on my laptop and watching the thread through my instant messenger. Trying to type at that speed on N95 would be almost impossible for me without an external keyboard.
Unless you call up jaiku through a web browser you’re not going to follow a busy thread very easily, unless everyone contributing is on your contact list. Just using the mobile client to get updates on it will, as far as I can see, only give you the pieces written by your contacts, which can become confusing.
For microblogging, Jaiku seems quite similar to twitter, except that you decide when you wish to retrieve any messages. On a busy day though you might never be able to back up to see all the things you’ve missed, and the important piece of knowledge such as the tube closure, or the accident at Hangar Lane will slip past you unnoticed.
There are a large number of passionate users on Jaiku who are spreading the gospel as fast as they can. It attracts the sort of evangelical geeks who do that. You couldn’t afford to pay for the publicity a group like this can generate, at least a small start up of this sort couldn’t. But it’s not enough to target a bunch of geeks, if you want to move forward you need the regular Joe to buy into it. Right now, I don’t think they’re prepared to make that sort of commitment. It takes too much time to follow. If you’re working in an office, how do you justify keeping up with your work while following Jaiku. I’d be really interested to hear how people manage the volume of data that jaiku generates in their working day. Do you use instant messenger, jaiku webpage, mobile client?
Jonathan Mulholland <a href="http://jonathanmulholland.com/2007/11/19/what-google-has-planned-for-jaiku/">wrote an interesting piece</a> recently about his thoughts on why Google bought Jaiku, primarily for the presence enabling ability that it brings to mobile handsets. This sounds very feasible given the ability to target ads in the way he describes. If that’s the case, then it’s nothing to do with microblogging and they may never support that. I’m sure google has it’s plans for microblogging, it’s becoming increasingly common and they’ve shown repeatedly that they’ll invest in any new technology that they think promising, but perhaps it’s more likely that it will just be rolled into android than kept separate as Jaiku currently is. If this is what they do, where does it leave the current Jaiku users who prefer a different handset OS.
The other thing is, do the general public want to blog as solidly as you would need to make microblogging take off in the mainstream? Assuming you have a reasonable number of contacts it’s going to take a while to follow their updates so you might just end up doing what we currently do with twitter, which is to post some short notes about your day.
The last few days have really surprised me as to just how much time people evidently spend on Jaiku, I can’t imagine the average phone user taking that much of their day to connect with people.
Right, I’m not sure I’ve come to any reasonable conclusion, perhaps because I need more time to watch jaiku. For now, twitter is a very useful and valued service to me, or it would be once it stays a little more stable and reliable. Jaiku has a lot of promise, it’s just I still don’t think I’ve realised what that promise is.
Justin.
1 year, 4 months ago by jmagicfingers