Jaiku Your Feeds
Ever since Robert Scoble sent out the Twitter message on April 7th that “Jaiku is better software than Twitter“, fans of Twitter (and Scoble) have been looking seriously at the new kid on the blog, Jaiku.
First let’s backtrack: what is Twitter? In essence, Twitter is an application that allows you to IM (instant message) a group of people rather than one individual. Each Twitter registrant (“Twit”?) has an RSS feed for his/her messages (here is mine). Twitter allows you to subscribe to others’ feeds and it will combine them together for you (example). You can send a “tweet” (message) by instant message, text message, or from the website itself. So, it is very easy to participate even if you just have a cell phone. You can have messages sent to you via text or IM (I believe–haven’t used that option) or read from the website. There are also related applications. I use “Twitterrific” on my macbook at home which pops up the tweets in an unobtrusive little window on my screen so I don’t have to keep visiting the website to see what is new with my friends. At first you wonder how you would possibly use this silly little application, but the more you use it, the more you realize its use.
But I digress…
Jaiku allows you to pull together ALL your personal feeds from all sources in a similar manner. I haven’t tried it, but I imagine adding in my RSS feeds from my blogs, Flickr, del.icio.us, and, yes Twitter. So, Jaiku and Twitter are not mutually exclusive. Have a look at Scoble’s Jaiku page as an example.
I have not tried out Jaiku yet, but Wayne MacPhail has. Have a listen to Episode 9 of Online Tools for the 21st Century from the rabble podcast network where he talks about it (only 2 minutes).
Do you Jaiku?
Interesting to see how things catch on. Back in January, I posted about Twitter – http://www.slaw.ca/2007/01/22/some-folks-are-a-twitter/ – and tried imagine “good” uses for it. They seems to be coming about, whether via Twitter itself or Jaiku or…
I was torn between the two when I first ran across them (Twitter has more people on it; Jaiku has more features). But once I figured out how to put my Twitterings on Jaiku, I now only really have to post to one source. I like the comments feature on Jaiku, by the way.
Thanks for your take on it, Harvey. People seem to be talking about it a lot, so I am sure Jaiku will see more people using it soon.
I learned last week that Jaiku is actually pronounced like “haiku” (I was incorrectly pronouncing it “jay koo”). I like it even more now! :-)