Few days ago I have posted a list of things I won’t be occupied with any more in the new year. number 6 – general issues of microblogging. Now with graciously feminine consequence I intend to write about Jaiku…

But this is because it’s bad news on the western front. I know this has been written about before, but before it all goes to hell I’d like to give my very own, subjective account – not in the context of wider picture or the landscape of microblogging or any other shitty buzz word. Just as a one users story, because this is what social networks are made of.

Starting from the beginning. If you don’t know what Jaiku is – Jaiku is like twitter, only better, as it allows threaded conversations and that really changes the whole nature of the service. What you post on jaiku is a potential topic of group conversation. What you post on twitter is an announcement - whoever responds will not necessarily see what others responded. Twitter is great, because you can follow funny updates from Stephen Fry. Jaiku is great because people who use it are by large creative, insightful, helpful and charming individuals.

Why jaiku in particular attracted this type of core users remains a mystery. It invites exchange of thought so possibly it is just the type of people it appeals to. Or maybe that was just the right time and place for them to surface. I have done podcasts with jaiku folks, co-written stuff, co-produced stuff, got drunk with them, smoked up and played Lego Star Wars, went on road trips plotted and plotted and am still relentlessly plotting, because that’s how we roll. And even sang karaoke.

They have helped me out countless amounts of times. This blog looks the way it does, because they kindly helped me out with the pain of sorting CSS. This blog is only up because it is hosted and was set up by a jaiku friend. 

Last summer my iPod touch got stolen (from my friend’s handbag, in Brussels of all places). Now, just so that you have a full picture – I don’t go to corner store without my iPod. I write up just about every idea on the iPod. I carry photographs of my friends and family around with me, I have a serious podcast addiction… next to my laptop, this is one thing I would really rather not live without. And having it stolen, together with all my data and personal files like photos was a real kick in the teeth. So I went online and complained the hell to my geeky family, to get it out of my system and because I knew they will understand.

Shortly after I was in Liverpool for a geeky meet up of Jaiku folk from all over the place – London, Jersey, Germany and US. Aside from the fact that it was one of the best weekends ever – I haven’t laughed so much in quite a while –  I was also presented with… and iPod touch, for which a big bunch of my jaiku friends chipped in so that I could get it for my birthday. It wasn’t so much the ipod, although it’s been used extensively ever since, but the fact that they all cared about me enough. Every time I think about it, I think I must have done something ok in life, if I deserved this.

At a screening at BFI the other week I was able to show my video work to one of my all time favorite documentary filmmakers, because I had it on my iPod.

So you can forgive me for being a bit soppy when it comes to the subject of Jaiku. Or, lately, also a bit annoyed, although I think we’ve all resigned with the annoyance. Google bought Jaiku quite some time ago and the suspicion was at the time, that it was more about buying the creative team of talented specialists that stood behind it, than the service itself. And it seems that is exactly what happened – these days Jiry, founder of Jaiku, says ‘us’ about Google and ‘the product’ about Jaiku. You’ll be the judge of what it means. 

Predictably Jaiku these days tends to be down a lot, showing either the ‘bad getaway’ message or a pretty little bird with some cutesy message on how the heat went up. Frankly it went from amusing to annoying and I would quite gladly stashed this bird down some ones throat, if I knew who deserves it. Today the occasion is that Jaiku eats posts right after posting. It’s yet another time this happens and frankly today I’m not annoyed but upset, as this indicates a rather downward pointing tendency. For a dedicated user this can be, to say the least, pretty frustrating. We have been singing odes about Jaiku and how much better it is than (insert social networking service name here) for a while. Now we can’t even use it.

I understand that everything online has a limited life span (everything everywhere has) – even if it lives long it will inevitably bite the dust. In internet terms long is much shorter than anywhere else. Yet I somehow always thought this community is something special and thus will escape it. I still do thing it is special and most of us stay in touch using different services any way. Yet nothing works quite like posting a hangover notice on Jaiku and watching the comments flowing in..

my Flickr pro account cutesy of Abul, anther Jaiku friend

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