Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: January 14, 2009
Tags : google, Jaiku
Despite earlier reports that the Google owned microblogging platform Jaiku was to completely close, a new post from Google confirms that the service will live on, sort of.
From the post, Jaiku will be ported to the Google App Engine then open sourced, allowing anyone to grab the code and use it for their own service.
Google isn’t clear though on the existing service: a port to Google Apps may disrupt the current service, and Google doesn’t specifically say that existing users will continue to be supported. Instead they say that “Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers,” what ever that means.
Here’s the money quote from the post
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. The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, and we’re excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform.
Either way, they still killed one of the most promising microblogging platforms. For more on the Google Massacre, read here.
Jan 15, 2009
It had to happen. How can anyone justify investing (if you can call it that) millions of dollars with no foreseeable return. What were they thinking when they made the plunge into these (non profit) businesses.
Maybe they saw it as a way to stay in touch with new technology but I bet the people who made the decisions to invest were not putting up their own money. It is amazing how (suddenly) conservative people get if you say “Your bonus is in this – invest well and you do well – lose my money and you lose yours”.
In truth there are too many new web 2 technologies hitting the market at the same time. People think “Ah Facebook is making a fortune so I will create another one and make a small fortune”. But there are hundreds if not thousands of them and the market can only support so many especially if they refuse to share data and every time a person joins they have to start from square one.
I believe there are many niche markets where look alike programmes can be successful (why re invent the wheel – just choose a different track to follow) but most developers think a “mass market” is safer when in fact a small niche market is far more likely to succeed and when it does there will be no room for a competitor.
It's time entrepreneurs started earning their title (let alone the money they demand) and put more effort into developing the right product for the right market – and under the risk until they know whether there is a market for their idea before they go venture capital hunting which in my opinion is what most of the so called entrepreneurs really want (i.e. a free ride on your money).
Jan 15, 2009
I'd hazard a guess that you've no idea about the backstory to Jaiku or it's unique position in the microblogging field.
And as for your lecture on neocon micro-economic theory…
Jan 15, 2009
Jaiku was ported to Google Apps last year, if I recall correctly.