Jaiku Becomes a Google Site of the Lost

Google acquired the Twitter super-clone Jaiku. Jaiku is the twitter-like social network micro-blog presence (enough buzzwords yet???) web service. Like other sites before it acquired by Google, it will remain available to existing users but is essentially closed to new members. Google has developed a habit of buying great web services and then closing its doors for a long time. Remember the JotSpot wiki service? It was acquired nearly a year ago on October 1, 2006 and still shows no signs of becoming available for new sign-ups. And, what about the wonderful net voicemail service GrandCentral.com? It was acquired on July 2 of this year. It looks like they are sending new user invitations again. But, it seems awfully quiet (though not as dead as JotSpot).

Let's hope Jaiku follows a path closer to GrandCentral (no apparent development but invitations remain available) vs. the apparently stone cold (but still great) JotSpot.