Finland Finally Moving To Twitter
There has been a dynamic and active Jaiku community in Finland even after the service got acquired by Google in October 2007. Google acquisition has many times meant a kiss of death to many startups. The Jaiku community strongly believed Jaiku would be an exception. At least until now it did.
Among the Finnish Jaiku community there was talk about migrating to Twitter, a US based micro-blogging site, already a while back when Jaiku was down but yesterday (Link in Finnish) I saw people abandoning the ship in bigger numbers than ever before.
Why I believe this might really be the kiss of death to the Finnish born Jaiku is because I just recently shifted my own usage to become Twitter heavy without knowing about the mass exodus here in Helsinki. This is not due to one service being superior to the other, but due to something as simple as the network effect I got to witness at LeWeb in Paris. So many of my friends outside of Finland are having conversations that are relevant to me in Twitter that I can not afford to not be there.
Before I was adamant that Jaiku is a better service, but now I have come to believe that it's just different. Where as in Jaiku the users can have long discussions threads (think Gmail), which makes the short postings just starting points of the long winding conversations, in Twitter you can't but Tweet 140 characters at a time, making the latter service truly more limited. But the beaty of Twitter, I believe, is exactly the limitation and the fact that since it's limited it scales as a consumable vast stream of information, which you can mold according to your own preferences. In this I mean you can build your own personal filter for the vast amount of information that is generated daily in the web, thus effectively eliminating the spam and following not just what people are explicitly saying but also feeds from news services, blogs, so on and so forth. Leo Laporte just recently touched on the same topic in This Week in Tech. Laporte was also one of the first Silicon Valley luminaries who declared Jaiku as a better service than Twitter.
The mass exodus in Finland has been mainly attributed to the downsides and difficulties that Jaiku is currently having, for example feeds not coming through and a disabled SMS service, but I believe that the bigger reason why Jaiku would eventually lose the race even here in Finland is the potential upside in communicating with the whole world instead of just with other Finns and the odd faithfull foreigner still using the service. That said, Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen built an amazing service and I still hope I see a mass exodus from Twitter back to Jaiku even though I don't believe that happens.
I'm very sad that Google didn't fix Jaiku on time. Rest in peace!
What killed Jaiku? I think the biggest reason was the crappy API (as I mentioned in my post some time ago: http://anttiakonniemi.com/2008/11/12/jaiku-why-did-you-fail/). Something to learn for everyone.
I think the reports of Jaiku's death are greatly exaggerated. Technical development is stagnant for sure, but as of this morning at least conversations there have been as lively as ever. I've been on both services since the start, and overall have met far more new people and gotten more information via intelligent conversations in Jaiku than from the torrent of navelgazing, short-lived ejaculations that become the entirety of Twitter.
Being unable to follow the thread of any longer conversation in any sensible way breaks the service for me, at least, and as far as I know for many others as well. I'll be staying active in my Jaiku account until 1)the community there actually does leave, 2)the service is actually shut down, or 3)some other service upgrades its features to give me the kind of platform I want.
On the other hand, following discussions in Twitter is a lot more difficult. I follow people who tweet so much they drown all the discussion, even if there was one - and it's difficult to follow a discussion other people are talking in.
It's great that Finns have finally made the inevitable step. Even you Ville have earlier been quite stubborn in not seeing the obvious: the rest of the world is on Twitter.
Have to agree with Antti, that one big reason fot Twitter's success is their API, which has enabled developers to easily build services that add increased value to their users. Without sacrificing the user experience of the actual service.
I think 'mass exodus' might be a slightly premature exaggeration. There's a lot of talk and definitely some turbulence at the moment, but that doesn't mean the plane is taking a nose dive, yet.
Tiina,
I don't either believe that Jaiku is about to die right off the bat. But I have almost lost hope that Jaiku will rebound to challenge Twitter globally. This was something I was hoping and even advocating. I'm still in both services, but due to time constraints I need to prioritize one over the other and that has now changed in favor of Twitter.
Moreover, I do think you can have more intelligent conversation in Jaiku for sure. Actually, I don't think you can have conversations on Twitter at all. Twitter functions more as a real time email where you shoot ...well, Tweets back and forth. But I believe that's the beauty of it and that is exactly why I said it is the most consumer friendly form of information when get closer to real time information streams. Nokia Ovi product manager just recently showed me how he had plugged his FriendFeed feed into a Nokia Chat (Nokia Chat uses XMPP protocol which allows FriendFeed to talk to it) and here the Tweets and messages are just flying by. A surreal experience when watched on a cell phone. For this to be consumable the information needs to be in 'small portions'.
I, for one, have been really upset with email as a communication medium for a long time. And I believe Twitter is the intermediate step before the email killer. Many people have waited the next 'killer app' after the SMS and now they have it. Most of those people just don't realize it yet.
Timo,
I do admit I have been very stubborn on this issue, and I still am. In my mind this is yet another Betamax vs. VHS format war and before I strongly believed the better service should win. Now I just think they are different services. I do like both, but at the end of the day I follow my people and that's why, at least for now, am refreshing my Twitter more often than my Jaiku. And to be perfectly honest, I do like the more bare bones simplicity of Twitter as well when I have had the real taste of it.
I hate to leave (well, cut the time spent in) Jaiku, but I think I have to. Community in Jaiku is great and as a journalist I found several news leads there.
However, when it comes to following back channels of tech shows and other happenings, Twitter is a must have tool.
Mass exodus... meh :-)
Many of many colleagues and friends have told they're leaving haiku or are consdiering that. This will directly result to me leaving Jaiku too.
I have tried Twitter, but I din't like the UI and discussion features. Mayble I'll just one less communication methods from now on. Facebook, IRC and online forums are probably enough.
[...] this one: Ville Vesterinen reports that the loyal Finnish Jaiku community slowly turns its back to the Google-owned microblogging [...]
Nice to hear this. We've been in Twitter for some time but haven't seen too many Finns. During the last couple of months I have received more and more Twitter friend requests from fellow Finns.
Please, check my profile and connect with me:
http://twitter.com/markopyhajarvi
It is true, that some pros in some professions are changing from Jaiku to Twitter in Finland, just like Kari Haakana said. Tim O'reilly hasn't been so active in Jaiku instead of Twitter.
The "mass exodus" is nice term. But could you first explain what is the volume of normal exodus and how this exodus you describe differs from it in scale? In case of Jaiku, there has been maybe exodus of 20 persons . Many of the jaikuers have already Twitter also and use it every now and then.
Would be nice to get some statistics due to with bemes things are likely to spread nowadays quite fast, like this article, for example http://thenextweb.com/2008/12/15/finnish-geeks-say-goodbye-to-their-beloved-jaiku/
@Ville The thing is, I think the services fulfill two very different functions. Jaiku is truly social--like a cocktail party hosted by your friends, where you can drop in on conversations with semi-strangers, whereas Twitter is about spreading news--info and newsbites are sent out and replies are secondary. It really is micro-blogging, and is at it's best in journalism-like contexts.
As such, I think Twitter is useful for things like updating customers about your startup (Eat will be doing that soon) or following an ongoing event, while Jaiku is great for finding people who can help you through a roadblock, and then getting to know them better. As such, I'll continue to use both for their respective strengths.
I'm also a bit concerned about the "Finally Finns are emerging from their quaint little hole" aspect of this story. There's nothing foolish about being involved in a close-knit network. You may not meet as many people, but you'll know those people better. And it's not like Finns have been unaware of Twitter all this time. It's possible that there just hasn't seemed to be much relevant info to follow there so far, since it's mostly US-focused. I'd be curious to hear what or who you've found to follow on Twitter that tipped the scale.
[...] strongly on the mainly Finn-inhabited Jaiku. Also Ville Vesterinen from Arctic Startup says he was turned by the experience he had while attending Le Web conference. The bottom line of course is that as the whole of web and many of its applications base their [...]
You may want to check out yonkly: http://yonkly.com
It's the first "create your own microblog" that integrates with Twitter.
Twitter is so simple which makes it just great. But on the other hand, strange thing is that it normally takes months to actually figure out what is going on there. In the mean time you are just confused why this is so popular.
It is driving me crazy why this works and how they managed to create critical mass with such service. Just trying to understand the logic.
@pete They were first in the Bay Area with this kind of thing, and then got mentioned in the US media. That's how. :)
Who the fuck cares?
Firstly, thank you all for jumping into what I believe is an important conversation. I am happy to see my ass getting whipped by the Finnish Jaiku users who stand up for their service. Not that I think it will change the facts, but it's still shows that Jaiku founders did create something really great.
Is there a mass exodus or just an exodus? I believe this is beside the point. The point is that the user base is decreasing in an increasing pace. But since you insist, I'll explain.
I have about 40 active contacts who are based in Finland, which I follow in Jaiku. Out of these 40, 10 contacts have said they leave, are considering leaving or are already left Jaiku to move to Twitter. This amounts to 25% of my active Finnish Jaiku contacts. Since I mainly see the contacts I follow I use this as a proxy sample. Add to that the fact Jaiku tread I posted in the blog post (here: http://karde.jaiku.com/presence/50121771#c-1927669).
25% migrating Jaiku users, 21 new Finnish Twitter contacts in one day added to the general sentiment from the Jaiku tread above amounts to mass exodus in my book.
Reiterating Marko Pyhäjärvi's comment above "During the last couple of months I have received more and more Twitter friend requests from fellow Finns."
That's my reasoning and if we disagree on this I am happy that we can have these mediums and conversations to get the real state of the affairs out into the open.
@Tina,
I agree Jaiku and Twitter are different services, as I pointed out in the post, but it does not change the fact that most people try to choose one over the other to manage their time.
Further, I agree there’s nothing foolish about being involved in a close-knit network. Quite the opposite. I never argued there was something wrong with that.
What tipped the scale for me was the 1300 LeWeb participants (minus the Finns in Jaiku). I knew many friends and colleagues abroad using Twitter I would've loved to engage in conversation with already earlier but valued my 100 person strong (passive and active) Jaiku contacts over the ones abroad. Finally I made the decision to give in by prioritizing Twitter conversation over the Jaiku ones as they toned down content wise for me. But make no mistake, I have never said I will stop using Jaiku. I will just prioritize Twitter.
@Steve Jobs
We do! And you should as well!
There is an interesting discussion going on in Jaiku about microblogging and today's events. And I wrote a mild critique about the journalistic standards of Arctic Startup. Check it out: http://ubiq.jaiku.com/presence/50125816#c-1932110 (in Finnish).
@ville for you twitter is probably a better service, and i think sensible to have an account if you are attending a conference where there is a significant Web2.0 presence (espcially if it is American, where twitter rules).
Also, regarding "back-channels" this post http://designswarm.com/blog/2008/10/18/thoughts-on-conferences/ struck a real cord with me.
It may be that Jaiku is going for slow growth (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/building-an-alb.html).
Now it may be too little too late if the jaiku team don't start doing *something* soon.
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Jaiku is a great niche service. I like symbiotic atmosphere but it has to become an international platform. There are probably too many barriers for Jaiku entry. This storm in the water glass might help to get more global attention. There are many followers outside the "fanatics". Jaiku is more conversational and I hope that a MICROBUBBLING platform emerges that is both local and intimate, global and cross-border.
Br
Helge
Finland
visualradio on Jaiku (conversational and bubbling)
digitalvillages on Twitter
visualradio on Bloggy.Se
visualradio on Friendfeed
visualradio on emerging laconica
[...] geeks say goodbye to their beloved Jaiku” On the Arctic Startup blog Ville Vesterinen reported that the loyal Finnish Jaiku community is abandoning Jaiku for Twitter because the feeds [...]
I could never even figure out how to join Jaiku. I requested an invitation a few weeks back, but received no response. I'm sure the service is sweet as honey, but being left out kind of sours the experience.
@vva, I don't know where you requested the invite, but I just send you another one so you can join the fun.
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