Jaiku was a

social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

micro-blogging Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the ...

and lifestreaming service comparable to

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, founded a month before the latter. Jaiku was founded in February 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and launched in July of that year. It was purchased by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

on October 9, 2007. When Jaiku Ltd was an independent company, its head office was in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

History

Jaiku was created in February 2006 by

-based Jaiku Ltd. The founders of Jaiku chose the name because the posts on Jaiku resembled

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

. Also, the indigenous

Sami people Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

have traditionally shared stories by singing joiks. On January 14, 2009, it was announced that Google would be open-sourcing the product but would "no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase," instead leaving development to a "passionate volunteer team of Googlers". The financial terms of the deal were not released. It was said that the Jaiku team would also help Google on its upcoming G phone project. New user registrations were closed. On March 12, 2009, Jaiku was re-launched on Google's App Engine platform and on March 13, 2009 the source code to JaikuEngine (the open source equivalent of the jaiku.com codebase) was released. The intent was to compete in the enterprise microblogging arena with a fully customizable microblogging offer. On October 14, 2011, Google announced that Jaiku would be shut down by January 15, 2012. This announcement came around the same time Google shut down Google Buzz and iGoogle's social features. On November 29, 2011, a group of former users launched Jaikuarchive.com – The Jaiku Presence archiver "to save an important part of our digital heritage." The original archive site shut down somewhere in 2014 and has since been offline. As of February 2019, the domain led to an error page on Google's servers.

Software

Jaiku consisted of a

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

, a mobile website and a client application which acts as a replacement address book that runs on S60 phones. Jaiku was compatible with

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

S60 platform mobile devices through its Jaiku Mobile client software. The software allowed users to make posts through the software onto their Jaiku page. Jaiku released their

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

, which allowed programmers to make their own third party software components such as Feedalizr. One of the main differences between Jaiku and its competitor Twitter was Lifestream, an internet feed that shared users online activities utilizing other programs such as

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

for photos, last.fm for music, and location by mobile phone. Since Jaiku became open-source, the Lifestream function was removed.

Features

Jaiku.com allowed users to post their thoughts, opinions, and comments in regards to their lives or any other subject. The posts that users created were called "Jaikus" and users had the option of making them publicly visible or private. The site allowed users to keep in touch and interact with friends either through the website, or through the mobile application.

References

External links

JaikuEngine

JaikuEngine mailing list
{{Social network Defunct microblogging services Blog hosting services Discontinued Google acquisitions Online companies of Finland Internet properties disestablished in 2012 Internet properties established in 2006 2006 establishments in Finland 2012 disestablishments in Finland Defunct social networking services

History

Software

Features

See also

References

External links