Last week, Google announced that the company was unceremoniously discontinuing or at least ceasing development of a number of services it had launched or acquired in the past, including Google Video, Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball and The Mashup Editor. The shutdown of the latter two was announced on the Google Code blog by VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra, along with some explanation regarding microblogging Jaiku, which many tech blogs and news outlets reported was merely being kept alive without further plans for the Twitteresque service.
Jaiku founder Jyri Engeström responded to the reports today in a blog post claiming that the service – which has always remained invite-only ever since its launch even after Google’s acquisition in 2007 – is actually going to serve for something more interesting than he set it out to be, and I think he’s got a point. As we wrote before, Jaiku will be ported to Google App Engine (something which had already been initiated months ago) and all of its code will be released under the Apache license, while existing accounts will still be able to use the tool the same way they’ve been able to ever since it launched.
But few people seem to care that handing out the code to the open source community and starting the ‘Jaiku Engine’ project is actually great news for companies, groups and individuals who were looking to roll their own, decentralized microsharing / lifestreaming applications, initiatives we’ve seen pop up here and there already (e.g. Laconica / identi.ca, which just received seed funding and Yonkly). For better or worse, the Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, something Twitter users and developers have been desperately asking the San Francisco startup to add preferably sooner than later. I’m quite sure this will prove more interesting in the long run than what most people expected Jaiku’s future to hold.
So Google did not acquire Jaiku in order to launch a Twitter competitor, but does that matter?
In Jyri’s words:
Soon, anyone, for free and with little effort, will be able to install and modify the Jaiku code, launch it on App Engine, and run their own microblogging platform. Combine that decentralization with standards such as OAuth and the forthcoming activity stream standards, and what we’re seeing here is the accelerating trend away from microblogging being a destination to microblogging being a pervasive and ubiquitous part of the fabric of the web itself.
Let’s wait and see, but I for one am curious to find out.
Trust me they are dying
Great post , hope to see more activity from others
The evidence suggests they aren’t aiming for the same goals that Google originally had in mind for the product when they acquired it, but who knows, maybe this is what they planned all along.
Hopefully it will go onto greater things this way, but whether “greater” is the same as “profitable” remains to be seen.
http://www.jaik...ng-open-source/
“With the open source Jaiku Engine project, organizations, groups and individuals will be able to roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine.”
If the code that Google is releasing only makes it possible for you to run “Jaiku Engine” only on Google’s App Engine, then it is not open enough. I have the feeling that this will be the case.
Mommy you cooked my food but who will chew it for me.
If you want more than free code then get to work and make it happen. What’s next, I know, you’ll want Google to give you a business plan, seed money, free manpower resources, and built in profits. This must be Jerry Yang, wake up Jerry.
I agree. If you don’t want to run the code on Google’s App Engine, modify the code to run on a vanilla Django install. Or you could just go for identi.ca which doesn’t require Google’s App Engine.
I bet they are having the infamous “TIME OUT” problems on App Engine. Its a total piece of crap.
Google wants people to use their app engine, if Google have great tools such as Jaiku to use under their engine the better for them.
That could probably mean death to laconica/identica instead… Jaiku is far superior.
Doubtful if the open source licenses are compatible. laconia/indenti.ca could simply port features over if the licenses allow it.
He’s either full of it or he’s living in a denial
.
Personally, they’re dead asa doorknob. They should just call a spade spade.
Agreed
The assumption is that there is a market for more than one Twitter. As a user I don’t care if Twitter is open source, portable, adaptable or ‘Morphing’. All I care about is if my friends are listening.
I wonder what that means for Jaiku…
i agree with that opinion
One Jaiku feature that Twitter never had is the smart contact list app (S60 only, afaik).
I’ve been really looking forward to Jaiku getting integrated into the Android platform, not so much the AppEngine.
Imagine if all Android phones shipped with seamless Jaiku-enabled microblogging integrated with SMS and calling. As the contact list is an existing social network transferred through a SIM card, this could rapidly propel Jaiku into markets where Twitter is less known, powered by big-name handset manufacturers.
I’ve never used Jaiku, so I don’t care whether they are morphing or heading towards hitting the deadpool club.
On a different note; “I’d like to see Google acquiring Mozilla’s Firefox, and then integrate its Chrome and Search technology within FF. Yeah, that would be something to write about.”
I for one am really looking forward to this release to see how easy it will be to shape to my needs.
The only thing that remains to be seen is how well it will run on Jaiku.
im intrested to see what comes of this. Google always seems to have good ideas! I’m sure what ever they do it will take off
this sounds great, but I think there is a sincere fear that the players in social media have arrived. I hope I am just a grumpy old man because getting people off of these stupid closed standards would be great. facebook gets more and more appealing. I’m not sure people are ready for open standards because we are looking to improve technology right now. There must be some kind of middle ground. It might make more sense for there to be technology centralization, but social policing done locally. I just can’t see getting excited using a failed standard.
Jaiku should have never sold to Google. A lot of companies used to think it was great and would cross their fingers for it and be elated when it did happen but it’s really the kiss of death.
Jaiku could have been so much more on its own. It was way more reliable than Twitter and offered a lot more features. They had a lot of vision when it came to the use of cell phones too, most especially Nokia. They experimented a lot with presence.
Jaiku may be more advanced than Twitter in terms of features, but Twitter wins hands down in terms of users.
Don’t be too suprised if Google tries to buy Twitter this year due to its large user base.
Remember even though Google had Google Video in the past, this still didn’t stop them from buying out YouTube.
The same tatic may be in play for both Jaiku and Twitter.
Send out a Press release that Jaiku is still a part of the Google Empire, whilst looking at the option to purchase Twitter in the coming months.
But any moves by Google to acquire Twitter in the near future would be the making of a Three way bidding war between Google, Microsoft and Facebook to buyout Twitter.
I don’t know why they would. Point taken, you may say it’s for users, but they have many of them already on other services — Google Mail, YouTube, Blogger, etc..
I will be _very_ surprised if Google tries to buy Twitter. At the time when Google purchased Jaiku, their traffic was very close. Half a million users apart, I think.
Google could have easily nutured Jaiku into being a “Twitter killer,” not that a label like that would have meant anything at the time, but still, they had their chance and blew it.
Why would they bother with Twitter now? They’re clearly not interested. They’ve had all the time in the world to integrate Jaiku and or Jaiku’s technologies into GMail / GTalk and launch with a massive userbase.
Instead, they put the head lead of Jaiku to work on… Google Profiles. That’s fairly telling.
Why does Twitter need OAuth? Isn’t its current API good enough already?
Because it’s whack to give out your login/password to third parties?
—
In general, Google probably bought a very talented team of developers and while I can see that maintaining Jaiku costs them money with probably little ROI, it’s still “sad” for many to discontinue this service.
I haven’t been able to figure out if they will leave Jaiku.com online, or not. The blog posts around the topic are rather fishy/contradicting.
In general, web2 is so great for people because companies offer sweet services for free, but we should probably all get used to the fact that sooner or later this won’t be the case anymore.
People need to pay rent and to be able to do this, they need to be paid. You wouldn’t expect other businesses to offer services which generate next to nothing, or very little cash flow for them.
http://search.t.../search?q=Twply
The magic is in the touch.
Still invitation only? No wonder Jaiku is still staying a niche platform.
Anyone care for a game of… dodgeball? *ahem*
Of course they morphing, and not dying. they are morphing Jaiku into a Zombie service. and Zombies are part of the undead.
I think the only to benefit from Jaiku going Open Source will be Identi.ca. this sure was a good week fro Identi.ca. i bet they are truly happy about this. jaiku tech up for mining and 100k on the same week.
I may be a late adopter … but given that Jaiku code will be available App Engine… I am interested to give it a try. I would really appreciate if anyone can share an invite. Pls email me at flake [at] live .com .au
Thanks
@Flake: done
Thanks Ton… I have got it.
Well,its like saying “Well I am not bleeding from my ass, I am just shitting red”
The NEW mighty empire has to take a step back. Wow. But for every app or web service there are at least 10k people who will use it. Soooo…I guess what every they MORPH Jaiku into will be a service that at least that many people if not more will use.
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