Like many others, I’ve noticed that Jaiku hasn’t been working correctly in recent weeks. It is slow, and the API has been really unreliable, as I noted on Sunday (on Twitter of course). You’ll recall that Google bought Jaiku back in October, and sadly, it hasn’t been the same since.
The main advantage (for me) that Jaiku had over Twitter was that it was incredibly reliable. I coded the "My Status" widget that appears on the right side of my blog to use Twitter originally, but switched to Jaiku after I realized how unreliable Twitter was. This week though, I switched back – because Jaiku is the unreliable one now.
Company founder Jyri posted a note yesterday, acknowledging the neglect and assuring us that good things are on the way. That’s a step in the right direction, and I’m glad the Jaiku team got some R&R over the holidays, but what if it’s too little, too late?
Here’s why Twitter works better for me:
- There are way more people on Twitter, and it’s pretty easy to discover new people that might be interesting to follow.
- Twitter’s mobile site is far better than Jaiku’s. I’ve always got Twitter Mobile open on my iPod touch, and it works great.
- Twitter works with my cell phone. I’ve never been able to get Jaiku to work. Maybe it doesn’t like Canadian numbers or something.
- Far more third party sites and utilities work with Twitter.
- I much prefer the @username system that Twitter has over the "proper" comment system that Jaiku has.
I hope the Google/Jaiku team can make progress on Jaiku this year. It would be great for Twitter to have some solid competition (and no, Facebook doesn’t count).
How about you – do you use both? Which do you like better and why?
Read: Jaiku Blog
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