I wrote a while back on Jaiku saying that I thought it was way cooler than Twitter.

So now I’m kinda impressed by the first (or at least the first I’ve heard of) high profile switch from Twitter to Jaiku. Apparently, Leo Laporte of TWiT switched services early this month, citing confusion between the names of TWiT network and the online social service. That said, he also encouraged his Twitter friends (fans?) to join Jaiku as well, and apparently many did.

Well, I’d say things are definitely look up for Jaiku. It’s an excellent tool for updating your contacts about your presence, both with actual posts on Jaiku and with imported feed. Not to mention it’s very handy use as a backchannel during conferences, as was done during the recent Pixelache Festival in Helsinki and during Hej! 2007 in Stockholm.

Can’t say I was very active when I first joined, but the urge to update my Jaiku stream comes more often now like an itch you just have to scratch.

Just a short plug here.. if you’re really into quick backchannels, check out Onelinr.com created by Eric Wahlforss. As above, we used it as one of the backchannels during Hej! 2007 and the activity and buzz it created as the conference progressed was just awesome. I especially liked Eric’s observations of the differences in the types of posts between Jaiku and Onelinr backchannels too. Do check it out.