Stardust Global Ventures

I was one of the early promoters and fans of Jaiku. I worked closely with the team there to get their blogger relations program kicked off and I did the exclusive first posts on the Nokia mobile phone client when it was unveiled.

That was then. This is now.

What happened? Google. Google didn’t have the vision or the chops to really do social media. Remember Orkut? There are some places Google just can’t play, and they proved that today when they essentially shuttered Jaiku.

Sure, it’ll go open source and get some rabid support from the Linux and Nokia gang who still hang there. I wish them well, but Jaiku is now relegated to a cultish and shrinking following. Sheryl and I closed our accounts there a week or so ago. Jaiku simply lost relevance in our social networking lifestream. And since that’s one of the primary places we met and our relationship grew to the love we so openly share through social media, closing our accounts was a sad note indeed.

But the truth is that Google didn’t buy Jaiku. They didn’t ever really want the service. They bought the talent. They wanted the people not Jaiku. Google buys lots of smaller companies, but let’s not overlook that what they trade in most is talented people. Not unlike other Borg collectives, Google assimilates.

Sadly, today we say farewell to Jaiku. One of the best lifestreaming concepts ever to bear fruit shuffles down the long mile and we watch the lifestream slip into the deathstream.