Twitter vs. Jaiku - enter Google.

Well the Twitter outages are no secret to anyone that's been using the web based micro-blogging tool lately. And the picture of the whale being carried across the sea by small (tweeting) birds when Twitter has reached maximum capacity says it all. And despite the fun we have blaming @Scobleizer who was 'credited' with a massive amount of tweeting, the truth is that many are getting frustrated. Combine all of this with decision by Twitter to remove such features as direct messaging and mobile activity for the time being and you've got problems.

Enter Jaiku - recently acquired by Google.
Let's talk 'slick' for just a moment, shall we? Upon signing up the first thing anyone will notice is the abundance of features Jaiku has over Twitter - most notably the ability to import rss feeds from various sources such as your blog, LastFM, Flickr, YouTube, BrightKite, Google Calendar, and yes - even Twitter. The beauty of this is that outside of 'micro-blogging' your updates, the traffic you're generating elsewhere on the web is presented in one neat package.

Not to mention some added flexibility such as groups, icons for each stream, complete integration (as contact list) in some Nokia phones all make this a tool that is hard to pass over. Oh, and the ability to send entries via Instant Messenger and/or text messages? Still there.

What will this mean for Twitter? What will the recent acquisition by Google mean for Jaiku? Will there be a slick interface with Google's Friend Connect? Time will tell - but at the moment I am strongly considering jumping ship. The only delay is "finding" my friends on yet another platform.... Hey isn't Friend Connect supposed to put an end to that?

also posted here.

Comment by Jim Canto on June 3, 2008 at 10:28am: THANK YOU! Great report. I've not yet embedded myself in Twitter. You may have saved me a ton of time. And, RecruiterGuy, after seeing some of the things you do with technology, I value your opinion. I'm headed to jaiku to sign up NOW. How the heck to you pronounce it though?

See you around.
- Jim

Comment by Jim Canto on June 3, 2008 at 10:33am: Bummer... just went to their site... (look great)... but, as part of their announcement of "Joining Google", they had this to say; "In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. "

So.. I bookmarked it and will have to join later. Hopefully, I just saved some of you some time. But, I'll be taking a good look at them when they open up the gates again. See you there.

Comment by Jim Canto on June 3, 2008 at 10:38am: Looks like we can request an invite to beta test. Click Here to land on the request invite page.

Comment by RecruiterGuy on June 3, 2008 at 11:00am: It doesn't let me invite anyone yet - but I'll publish here the second I can. :-)

Comment by Jim Canto on June 3, 2008 at 11:20am: Sounds good to me. Looks like it's corporate who has to issue the invite currently. They made reference to "as soon as a space opens up"... or something like that. Folks who read this can enter their e-mail address, using the link in my post above, to get on what seems to be a waiting list.

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