Jaiku – value add for Google Voice?

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By Peter Hollard

Those of us who live outside of the USA know the value that Jaiku added to our mobile. The Jaiku mobile micro blogging application was the best available for mid and lower end mobile phones and was tightly integrated with the SMS service of many mobile operators. It was a pleasure to use, was stable when Twitter was up and down like a yo-yo, and worked equally well on a PC. However it had little penetration in the US market and was used mainly in Europe and the Far East.

Why then did Google buy Jaiku for a reported $12m only to let it languish and eventually, once it was ported to Google App Engine, release the code through the Google Code Project?

Could it be that there is a greater plan here or am I ascribing more to Google’s strategic vision than is due?

What if Google Voice, which also runs on Google App Engine, where to release an API which enabled Jaiku to integrate so that SMS’s and messages could be managed through the Google Voice offering?

There would now be the possibility off multiple “Jaikus’” running world wide, each serving a niche country, interest group or company and all with the ability to integrate through Google Voice.

How powerful would that be? Where would this lead? Or am I living in cloud cuckoo land.

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