20 May 2008

Twitter may be down frequently, but Jaiku is always in beta.

Twitter has quickly become the king of the microblogging world. The darling of early adopters, Twitter is increasingly attracting mainstream Internet users as well. It should keep growing, too, because people are going to want to use the same service as their friends are already using. Twitter does have a weakness, though, and it's not something it can hide: it goes down, and fairly regularly at that. For the most part, Twitter users have proven to be an understanding lot; many of them realize that Twitter is an independent venture that has grown very big very quickly. Still, there's little that's more annoying than an unreliable communications network; Twitter's downtime ought to be fueling competition in the microblogging world.

Google's microblogging acquisition, Jaiku, has not taken advantage of Twitter's weakness. Although still frequently mentioned as being Twitter's primary competitor, Jaiku hardly offers a refuge for those seeking a more reliable microblogging alternative. If you want a Jaiku account, you have to go to the website, request an invitation, and wait. (You could also get invited directly by an existing Jaiku user, but invitations are limited.) If you want a Twitter account, you go to the website, signup, and start tweeting. By the time Jaiku sends you an invitation, you could already have built up a network of Twitter friends. Granted, Jaiku is in beta, still a work in progress. Google has missed the boat by not putting more resources into its microblogging platform; there may never again be as good a time to build up such a service. In all likelihood, Twitter will overcome its uptime issues and consolidate its position as the top microblogging service. Jaiku may have to settle for second place or worse if it doesn't come out of beta soon or at least start allowing open signups.

On the other hand, it is indisputable that Google achieved a lot of success following a similar strategy with Gmail. The invitation-only model there created massive amounts of interest prior to the service opening up. There isn't such a huge drive for Jaiku invitations as far as I can see, and I think this is largely due to the perception that Jaiku is not that different from Twitter. Gmail quickly gained a reputation as being something revolutionary; Jaiku, on the other hand, seems to be widely considered merely a pretty Twitter alternative. Additionally, I think many people are going to prefer to stick to one microblogging service; in contrast, few people seem to have just one email address nowadays. I could be wrong, but I think Jaiku would be better off if it were open and out of beta.

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