Google buys Jaiku, not Twitter

chris — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:53:55 -0700

When I heard today that Google bought Jaiku I wasn't surprised. Jaiku is my lifestreaming application of choice and their Symbian app is awesome. They clearly have a knack for UI design and likely have as much native Symbian experience as anyone out there. What with Google's recent mobile push, I immediately figured Google was after Jaiku's mobile app. I expressed this view in the office and was immediately rebuffed.

The overwhelming opinion was that Google is looking to get into lifestreaming (or activity streaming), which raises the question "Why not Twitter?". Twitter is the lifestreaming champ at the moment, thanks largely to their brilliant API, and its founder, Evan Williams, previously worked at Google after his company Blogger was acquired. I went online and found out that the very same debate was going on quite prominently on the web. Mashable asks the same questions, O'Reilly echoes my view, but an email from Jaiku pointing to an acquisition FAQ clears things up a bit:

Q: Why did Google acquire Jaiku?

A: Activity streams and mobile presence are important areas where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users. Jaiku's technology and talented team are a great addition to Google's current application and mobile teams.

Well, there you go; there are the activity steams, the mobile aspect, and Jaiku was probably cheaper. Jaiku has also closed its doors to new users indicating they are looking to improve before they scale again. Having already signed up, I am one of the lucky ones that gets to keep using the service. Personally, I don't depend on Jaiku so I don't have many friends or post many updates. I've just been using it out of curiosity and for occasional amusement. Now that Google has grand designs for it and it's a private beta, I'll probably be watching it much more closely. I welcome new friends, my id is chriseqo if you want to add me. I'll see you on JaigoogKu.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO Community - activity stream

Google buys Jaiku, not Twitter