We recently wrote about Jaiku losing users and subsequently got strong response from the Jaiku community telling us differently. Partly the reason why some users (link in Finnish) have moved to Twitter was Jaiku’s feature pack was seriously couching:  feeds not coming through and SMS messages were disabled.

Soon after Jaiku community stood up for their service the Jaiku team also woke up and already the next day feeds were back up, even if still a bit slow, and today SMS was also reactivated. The community effectively made itself heard and it worked at least to some extent.

There’s also new feature’s coming for example regarding the API that supports OAuth, but the gravest of the concerns’ has yet to be answered by the Jaiku team, namely when are we going to see these changes happen and especially where is the service going.

Jyri Engeström commented in Jaikido blog way back in August when Jaiku was being ported to Google App Engine, “We appreciate your patience and can’t wait to open up Jaiku to everyone”, but is Google’s corporate wheel too slow to turn and is Google’s silence policy regarding it’s products development slowly pushing the Jaiku community’s patience one step too far?

The same Jaikido blog entry talks about how 3rd party developers will have greater control over the system and can write applications that provide richer features to their users. This clearly shows that there are plans for the future. One could even speculate that Google has all along had a clear plan on what they are going to do with Jaiku. As Antti Akonniemi speculates, ” Jaiku’s location based and phone profile features pre-installed on Google phones could change everything.”

Now, if one wants to see this happening one easily could: Petteri Koponen has been working especifically on Android in Google’s London office, while Jyri Engeström is in Mountainview working on Google’s strategy for the social web. Has Google just waited until Android is ready to ramp up Jaiku development? Then again, last April Teemu Kurppa told (In Finnish) the Finnish crowd that Jaiku was being developed on the Google’s infamous “20% time”. Google would hardly make developers develop the corner stone of it’s mobile strategy on their ‘extra 20%’. Or would it? Jyri’s silence despite the lively conversation and many requests regarding an update on what’s happening could indicate that something’s up.

This is not a new idea, but could the time start to be ripe for the launch as Jaiku’s porting to Google App Engine is nearly finished which allows a rapid uptake of new users, and as Android is fully functioning and just starting to go after market share?

Edit 17.12.2008 at 3.36pm: Jyri Engeström posted today a new blog post in his blog where he carefully tells us about the future of Jaiku. Among other updates he says that “I regard the Jaiku community as friends, and your concern about the future of the service is legitimate. It warrants a response.”

To indicate what is to come, he goes on by saying that they “[...]plan to open up its development to the user community more in the future.” and that “People should be able to post and follow status updates across servers just like they send email. No single service, no matter how large and powerful, is the platform. The Web is the platform.”

The best indication on what’s to come is at the end of the blog post. I quote: “In spite of the decision to not throw resources at building Jaiku into an independent Web brand, recall that the acquisition announcement stated that ‘Activity streams and mobile presence are important areas where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users.’ Of course this statement still holds true, and you can bet your Android that there are completely new Wow!’s in store.”

At ArcticStartup we believe that we will soon see something that involves Jaiku’s microblogging model, Android and the Open Stack nicely mixed into a working solution for those handset manufacturers that decide to take upon Google’s open offer.

I recently wrote about the Finnish Jaiku community moving to Twitter en mass. This got the community on barricades ready to defend their service teeth and nail against my claim. What is interesting here is the intensity with which the community defended its service against my argument and choice of words. They even came after me on ArcticStartup’s journalistic standards. I got the same treatment as TheNextWeb contributing editor Zee M Kane, even if for different reasons. After the points have been made it is up to each and every individual to make their own judgement regarding the issue. The comment tread is here and a Jaiku thread here (In Finnish).

Regardless whether the wording was misleading or not, and I’m ready to pull my weight and stand behind the argument I made, what is true is that even if users are leaving Jaiku the service is not dead by no means given the resistance and passion ArcticStartup just witnessed. The users send a loud and clear message that, the ones that are staying with the service are really sticking up for their tight-knit community despite Twitter’s or anyone else’s international dominance.

This makes me very proud to be a fellow Finn as it probably does make the Jaiku founders Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen. They have all the reason to be proud with a community like this. I have never witnessed the power of online community this close, even though some examples across the Atlantic like Facebook Beacon come to mind. Now we only have to make Sergei Brin and Larry Page to understand what kind of dynamic community they are letting to fade. The only wish that the Jaiku community has is to know what is about to happen to their service. @jyri, do you hear us?

Image by Tambako the Jaguar (CC: by-nd)

Teemu Kurppa, a mobile software developer and a member of the founding team of the activity stream and micro-blogging service Jaiku, is leaving Google. He joined Google with the rest of the Jaiku team when Google acquired the startup in October 2007.

In his blog, Teemu tells that the main driver for his departure was an illness in his family which subsequently brings him back to Helsinki, Finland. However, he is up beat about seeing his loved ones back in Helsinki and also mysteriously comments that: “on work related matters, I’ve some exciting plans. More about these later”.

ArcticStartup wishes the best to Teemu and his family and excitedly expects whether Teemu will set up a new mobile startup when he moves back to Helsinki. Welcome back to the Arctic region Teemu!

Here’s another startup in a run down of startups that I saw at the Nordic Venture Forum couple of week ago in the beautiful city of Copenhagen, Denmark. All the startups present at the forum were seeking either financing from the investors or partners for their business.

Mobispine, a Swedish startup founded in in 2005, delivers mobile Internet and messaging services.

The company provides services for operators and end-users. The services include eSMS (Executive Short Message System) service enabling users to send messages from PCs to mobile phones and aggregation of news and content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) based news reader.

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I met the Jaiku founders (now at Google), Petteri Koponen and Jyri Engeström, yesterday at the Seedcamp evening party and asked them how they see the startup scene in Europe versus US and of course what they are up to nowadays.