Jaiku Couldnt Be Happier

By Steven Finch on Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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Filed Under: All Posts, Analysis

This is a picture of Jaiku’s co-founder Jyri Engestrom. He looks quite smug after he just sold his company to Google for an undisclosed amount.

But seriously is this a prime picture of what web 2.0 entrepreneurs look like these days. I thought the geeks got the girls. Im hoping the more work i do with web 2.0 and media companies doesnt make me turn into a total geek on the outside as well as the inside, because then i would just have no chance of getting laid.

However, congrats again to Jyri and im sure the people over at Pownce are kicking themselves they didnt have a chance at exiting to Google.

Google have said that the Jaiku team will be relocated to Mountain View for three months before eventually returning back to London. A Google spokesperson speaking to blognation said this acquisition was part of their strategy to counter the closed proprietary nature of Facebook and we should expect to see a few more acquisitions in this space soon.

Google Acquires Jaiku

By Steven Finch on Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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The news of the day must be that Google has acquired Jaiku. Jaiku is a microblogging site similar to Pownce and Twitter. It is a bit of a surprise that Google has opted to purchase Jaiku (which hails from Finland) instead of Twitter (the market leader) or Pownce (the new kid on the block with the best user interface).

Have a look at what everyone else has been saying about the deal:

Twitter has not long got Series A Funding, so it would have been rare for them to be purchased. Pownce on the other hand seems to be on the downhill slide. Since their highly publicised launch Pownce has never lived up to expectations and with the recent news about Kevin Rose potentially moving Pownce features over to Digg, it has just never recovered. If you look at Alexa data on Pownce you will notice it wont be too long until it dies a death, on the quick slide down. Its seems that Jaiku was an important match with Google because it has more of a presence in activity streams and mobile presence and those are the markets Google is trying to gain more market share. It that last week Google also launched Adsense for mobile, so this will be a nice addition to boost the start of that new service.