Remember Jaiku, the would-be Twitter competitor that Google acquired way back in 2007? We sort of wondered what had happened to it, but with Twitter growing leaps and bounds since then, it has more or less disappeared from our minds. Tonight, Google has finally announced what they are planning to do with the service, via an update to the Google Code Blog.
Essentially, the concept of a competitive consumer-facing Jaiku destination site and mobile app is dead, as Google says they will “no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase.” However, what they hint at is interesting: “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.”
In other words, it sounds like Google is working on a competitor to the host of enterprise-focused microblogging tools that have sprung up in the wake of Twitter’s success, or at least a service that will lure some paying users to Google App Engine. Open sourcing the code is especially interesting, as it means developers will be able to use the core of Jaiku to work on their own unique microblogging tools and offer them to either consumers or business users.
The news comes amidst a myriad of other not-so-good Google news this evening, including the shutdown of Dodgeball and Google Notebook, no more Google Video uploads, and layoffs of 100 human resources employees.
See Also: Enterprise Microsharing Matrix: Yammer and 14 Rivals Compared
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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Jaiku Releases New Microblogging Tool for Nokia S60
Jaiku on Your iPhone
A Day Without Jaiku…
Tumblr Takes 750K Series A
WidSets to Launch Jaiku Widget
Jaiku Hosting Markku’s Channel for Eurovision 2007
Jaiku: Question Asked, Question Answered
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Via Mashable
Personal comment:
Google app engine, l'application "Cloud" de Google (similaire donc à ce que fait Amazon avec EC2) est encore en version test. Le code de Jaiku, service de microblogging racheté par Google, devrait donc faire partie des outils mis à disposition pour développer des plateformes web à large diffusion.