I just received an SMS from the Jaiku bot saying that their SMS service was back up & operational. I’ve sent a post via the SMS bot and it is working, so it would seem that maybe Google hasn’t completely abandoned the service after all. This would be good. I liked Jaiku when it was first launched, it had a few features that I feel Twitter lacks (channels for one, plus native image posting) without over-complicating the service.
I’ve always thought that with GMail, GTalk, Grand Central & Jaiku, Google had the building blocks for a really comprehensive communications platform. Add into that mix Google Apps & Google Docs and you’ve got a solid business system to work from.
Imagine if Google rolled GTalk, Jaiku and Grand Central into a single app/service. It would suddenly become a serious competitor to Skype if they could get the sound quality and pricing right. Skype was supposed to be the communications platform of the future (if you believed the hype), but due to a number of factors, including the acquisition by eBay and the fact they use a proprietary VOIP protocol, it hasn’t happened. GTalk runs on an open VOIP protocol, so you can talk to non-GTalk VOIP clients. If done right that could be one killer app.
I’ve been using Jaiku in preference to Twitter for a couple of weeks now and have enjoyed it overall. Development doesn’t seem very rapid, and communication with users hasn’t been great, but Google are currently porting it to App Engine. I get the feeling that things will start moving soon.
I met Teemu from Jaiku-team recently on a Meetku in Helsinki. He told that Jyri, him and the rest of the team can only contribute to Jaiku related work for 20% of their office hours. Apparently they are working on something else – like Android?However I’ve also a feeling that something new will be launched quite soon. It has been so quiet…
If the Jaiku team are only using their 20% (which all Googlers get to work on whatever they want) that means that Jaiku is not seen as very important by Google. Of course, lots of things started as 20% projects, so that’s not necessarily terrible but it’s not great for Jaiku either.