Jaiku

This Finnish competitor to Twitter is a fantastic micro-blogging and life-streaming site. Every time Twitter goes down they gain more users. But is it enough?

I’ve been one of the most active users of the Twitter micro-blogging website in the country for quite a while. However I have also been a vocal critic. It’s brilliant simplicity in doing one thing well is being damaged by its inability to do that one thing well.

I joined Jaiku a while after Twitter and actually found it a far more pleasant site to inhabit. It reeks of deep thought in its design and every new feature just seems to “fit”. The threaded commenting and channels are the two killer features it has over Twitter. Of course, as James often points out, you lose some of the random encounters that you can get on Twitter but I’ve been having fewer and fewer incidents of that over there. The single biggest reason for not using it exclusively is that most people I know are over on Twitter.

Last weekend’s Twitter downtime was not the first but it annoyed me sufficiently to make me seriously wonder if I would move. Last night’s 2.5 hour (now 12 hour) “upgrade” may be the one of the last nails in the coffin. Suddenly Jaiku was buzzing with Twitter refugees this afternoon and its true power shone through.

I may set up some bridges between the two sites so I can see some of the Twitter traffic on a much culled friends-list. I may also use some of those tools which will send a copy of my Jaiku messages into Twitter. But as of right now, I’m in no rush to head back over to the blue mini-monster and I’m happy in Finland Finland Finland.

Rated 4/5 on Sep 6 2007 by Conor O’Neill
Review Tags: jaiku, twitter, micro blogging, lifestream
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