Google Neglects Jaiku So Users Switch to Twitter

Thursday, January 10th, 2008 by Andy Beal

Google Neglects Jaiku So Users Switch to Twitter

Google and Jaiku = gooku(two) Over at ars technica, there’s talk of Jaiku users fleeing to Twitter due to the lack of any innovation since being acquired by Google.

Google has allowed Jaiku to languish and is now suffering a backlash from frustrated users who are beginning to mass-migrate to Twitter, a competing microblogging service. Jaiku’s external feed servers, which are used by third-party Jaiku client applications, have been down frequently during the past week, often returning 504 gateway errors or nothing at all. During the brief stints when the feed servers are operational, they have been extremely slow and often out of sync with the actual content—typically lagging by between four and 13 hours.

I can attest to the poor performance of Jaiku. After the acquisition, I remembered that I had signed up for Jaiku many months before. I went back, logged in, and then added all of my social media feeds. Ten hours later, my Jaiku feed still hadn’t updated–I’ve not been back there since. I am however, very active on Twitter.

Jaiku founder Jyri Engestrom has tried to allay any fears that the service will follow in Dodgeball’s footsteps and join the “Google Sofa”–the place where acquisitions disappear behind, never to be found again.

Are you a Jaiku user? What’s been your experience since the Google acquisition?

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6 comments on “Google Neglects Jaiku So Users Switch to Twitter”

Mark Evans Says:

January 10th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

I don’t know anyone who uses Jaiku but lots of people who love Twitter. Look at these Compete.com numbers – http://siteanalytics.compete.com/twitter.com+jaiku.com/?metric=uv.

Telling.
lux Says:

January 10th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

I have a Jaiku account but I never use it either — everyone is on Twitter.

I would expect that Google will eventually incorporate Jaiku into whatever social media plans they have, but given the slow pace of Google product launches that probably won’t be until 2009.
Andy Beal Says:

January 10th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

@Mark – I wonder if they are really “switching” to Twitter or just using it in addition to Jaiku.
Alan Johnson Says:

January 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

I’d say that there are a lot of people who are currently using Twitter and have never heard of Jaiku as a result of the fact that G didn’t do a great job with the company up until this point.

Alan Johnson
Mobile guy Says:

March 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 am

I’m using Twitter and never used Jaiku.
Does Django + Google = Jaiku? Adrian Holovaty may be working for Google soon | Brian Shumate Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 10:56 pm

[...] it came back online. Many Jaiku users (including myself) are looking more seriously at Twitter, and making a switch or fleeing Jaiku, based upon Google’s apparent neglect of the Jaiku project. (to their [...]

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