I've been a long-term fan of Jaiku, the microblogging platform which a couple of days ago announced that it has been bought by Google - a move that will certainly un-nerve Jaiku's main rival Twitter.
The terms of the deal are still under wraps, but I'm sure founders Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen will have done pretty well out the service that they founded back in February 2006.
Google is still keeping quite about what it's plans for Jaiku are.
We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products. Although we don't have definite plans to announce at this time, we're excited about helping drive the next round of developments in web and mobile technology.
At the moment, new signups to Jaiku are on hold - no doubt to allow for smooth transition of the service to Googleland. Existing users are still free to use the service.
Interesting that Google has added to their acquisitions by opting to buy Jaiku and not Twitter, since the latter service, while similar, has a larger user base. For me, Jaiku's ability to integrate multiple RSS feeds into its service has always been a plus over Twitter. Together with it's superior mobile features.
The mobile space is something that Google is making significant inroads into - with rumours of the Gphone abounding plus its recent acquisition of the mobile social networking service Zingku.
Where ever there are vast numbers of people, Google wants to dominate as these recent moves show. And you can be sure monetisation of the mobile channel is at the forefront of the giant's mind.
Do you think Google's future dominance of the mobile channel is a good thing?
1 comments:
Nice post!
I was never involved with Jaiku, though like most, Google's purchase of the service definitely got me interested!
I'm partial to Pownce myself. Still have some invites if you or anyone else is interested!
As far as Google dominating the mobile game - it's a tough call at this point. Though with the new Skype mobile announcement, you can be sure things are going to get interesting very quickly.
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