Had a few thoughts again about Google and Jaiku when I was writing the previous post.
When Google first bought Jaiku three weeks back, there was surprise all around that Jaiku was the one chosen over the apparent incumbent, Twitter. After all, according to Alexa, Twitter has waaaay higher traffic than Jaiku. So why aren’t the birds tweeting in the Googleplex now?
Many of the reasons put forward by the community centred around the Jaiku mobile client, with high expectation that Google would eventually incorporate it into the fabled gPhone. So while, yup, we can hope (and pray!) to see an integrated Jaiku client in the search giant’s forays into the mobile world, here’s another thought as to why Google might have chosen Jaiku over Twitter.
Well, we all know that Google isn’t really in the mail, nor the calendaring, nor even(!) the search business. Their cash cow is advertising. And to make those advertisements relevant (and thus less irritating, and less evil), they need to selectively target their receipients. And to do that, they need organised information. And… Jaiku just happens to be a nice healthy source of that very important ingredient.
Oh.. not in the average “Waiting for bus in the rain”, “Just woke up!” kind of information though. The other stuff. Remember that nifty feature of Jaiku’s where you can import additional RSS feeds and have them incorporated into your “lifestream”? Yeah. That kind of information.
At a random picking of 10 contacts on my Jaiku list, we see feeds from:
- Blogs: 8
- Flickr: 7
- del.icio.us: 6
- Last.fm: 6
- and others including Twitter, Plazes and tumblelogs.
I don’t know about you, but to me it seems like Google’s just bought itself a huge load of information. Not just any information mind you. Information that’s already been organised. Likes and dislikes via del.icio.us and Last.fm. Personalities and viewpoints via blogs and tumblelogs. With Flickr, this information gains a face. Oh and let’s not forget the very first reason put forward. With Plazes and the Jaiku mobile client, ethereal information is tied down to physical locations. Pretty context-rich don’t you think?
Before anyone says I’m a privacy nut opposing the impending Google Grid, let me be the first to say, I for one….
Nah. Or not. 
Mahesh said
am November 23 2007 @ 8:33 am
Very interesting analogy..So you mean to say there is going to be an OpenSocial kind of thing for jaiku like applications? I think it is more relevant for their android development where we have J(aiku)Gphone that have seamless Jaikuing especially since their mobile client is much more robust..or did you just say the same thing?
ruiwen said
am December 2 2007 @ 12:20 am
Heh actually what I meant was that Jaiku is actually a huge source of contextually-organised personal information, and Google has just bought the lot of it. And since their business model relies on contextually-targeted advertising, purchasing Jaiku is probably quite a strategic move.
And yes, a native android Jaiku client would be very cool =)