Google has released the source code for micro-blogging service Jaiku. The company announced earlier this year that it would cease development of Jaiku. But instead of shutting Jaiku down altogether, Google has moved the project so that it now runs on Google App Engine.

Meanwhile, now that JaikuEngine is avialable to the public, anyone can set up their own version of Jaiku. And developers can help contribute to the project. It should be interesting to see how the project fares. While Twitter certainly dominates the micro-blogging space, it's possible that the new open source nature of Jaiku will make it attractive to open source enthusiasts. There's also the possibility that by making the project open source, developers will contribute new and exciting features more quickly -- but only if a strong developer community grows around JaikuEngine.

Google has announced plans to close, stop development of, or dramatically alter a number of services including Google Video, Google Notebook, Google Catalog Search, Jaiku, Dodgeball, and Google Mashup Editor.

Some of the services will still be around for a while, but active development has stopped which means there won't be any new features for Google Notebook or Google Video. And in a few months Google will stop accepting new uploads for Google Video which means the site will function as a video search engine and a repository of old videos.

Google Catalog Search is going away altogether, as is Dodgeball and Google Mashup Editor. Micro-blogging service Jaiku will live on as an open source project that will be maintained by volunteers from Google and outside.

Yesterday Google also wrote on its official blog that the company is eliminating about 100 recruiting jobs and may lose some of its engineering staff as the company tries to relocate some job positions.

[via Search Engine Land]

There's no shortage of desktop clients for Twitter and FriendFeed. But Posty goes a few steps beyond popular clients like Twhirl and Alert Thingy by adding support for Jaiku and Tumblr as well as Pownce.

Posty's main window features a list of supported services with check boxes next to each. Just enter a status update and select the networks you want to send the update out to, and you can post simultaneously to all 5 places. You can also select the individual tab for each service to see recent updates from your contacts or from the public timelines if they're available. You can also respond to comments or send direct messages directly from Posty.

One of the only complaints we had with Posty is that while the window is resizable, it starts out at 550 pixels wide and there's no way to make it smaller. Bigger, yes. But smaller? Not so much. So it takes up a fair bit of screne real estate.

Like most applications built on Adobe AIR, Posty is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

[via Sarah in Tampa]

It's no secret that Twitter goes down on occasion. But what are you gonna do if you just neeeeed to tweet?

The great minds at betaworks pondered that question as well and developed twitabit. A simple website that stores your messages and forwards them once Twitter is back up and running. Simply enter your username, password and message and you're off.

If you love Twitter so much that you haven't jumped ship, twitabit may be that life preserver you were waiting for.

If you have half a dozen social networks and microblogs that you like to update simultaneously, you probably need to go outside and get some fresh air. But before you do that, you can post an update to let all your friends know that you're going outside to get some fresh air using HelloTxt.

Last time we looked on on the site, you could post messages to 10 different services including Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. And that was about all you could do. But now the service has rolled out a new feature that lets you post images and videos. Well, sort of. You can upload an image to the HelloTxt server and get a shortened URL to place in your message so that anyone can click through and see the image. But HelloTxt doesn't actually host the videos. You'll need to copy the embed code from another site like YouTube or Vimeo. You do still get a shortened URL that you can send out to friends, so there's some value in the video feature. Just not as much as we'd like.

Somewhat ironically, while HelloTxt will give you shortened URLs for videos and images, there's no option to shorten a regular URL, so you'll have to rely on old standbys like TinyURL if you just want to share a link.

[via Go2Web2.0]

Ping.fm is a new service that lets you update a bunch of social network/messaging sites all at once. Instead of logging into Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook, and Tumblr and manually posting updates, you can just visit Ping.fm and write a single message which will be sent to each site. So far, it sounds a lot like HelloTXT, right? Well, it is, but Ping.fm has a few features that make it a lot more useful than HelloTXT.

First of all, you can post updates via email. When you sign up for a Ping.fm account you'll be assigned an email address. Just send a message to that address and the message will show up on all of your linked accounts. You can also enable an IM update option. Right now you need to have an AOL Instant Messenger account to use the IM posting option. But you don't have to use the official AIM client. As you can see in our screenshot, Pidgin works just as well, as should Adium, Trillian, Meebo or Digsby.

Ping.fm is still in private beta, but we've got 100 invites to giveaway. Just enter the code dls on the signup page.

[via Mashable]

Twhirl 0.7.1 was released this week and the desktop Twitter client has some major new features. First, the new version runs on Adobe AIR 1.0, so you don't need to have the old beta version of AIR installed to run it. But we're much more excited about the other new features including the ability to cross-post to Pownce and Jaiku.

If you provide your Pownce and Jaiku login information in the settings tab, any time you send a message to Twitter, the message will automatically go to your other micro-blogging services as well. You won't see replies from your Pownce or Jaiku contacts in Twhirl, but as far as baby steps go, this one's a doozy.

Twhirl 0.7.1 also includes additional color schemes, the ability to choose your URL shortening service (either Snurl or is.gd) and the ability to mark messages as read.

HelloTxt makes it easy to make sure all of your friends know what you're up to all the time, no matter what social networking services they use. Actually, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but HelloTxt does let you post messages simultaneously to a whole slew of social networking sites that allow you to frequently update your status.

You don't need to register for an account to use HelloTxt, but as you've probably guessed, you do need to enter your login information for your various social networking sites. If you do register for an account, you only have to enter this data once, and then you can broadcast your updates to your hearts content. Registered users can also see a timeline with your latest updates and responses from their friends.

[via makeuseof]

Mahalo's new add-on, called Mahalo Follow for Firefox solves this problem by submitting your link to services including Twitter, Jaiku, Ma.gnolia, del.icio.us, Google Bookmarks, and Tumblr. This seems to be an extremely useful tool.

To get started, head on over to Mahalo's site and install the Firefox add-in, put in your credentials for your various services, and share away.

Google seems to be intent on making waves. There's speculation that Google could launch a Facebook-rivaling service on November 5th. Today the company announced that they've acquired Jaiku - the 'what are you doing' and presence service based in Helsinki, Finland.

Whilst there's no mention of how much Google paid (all the terms remain confidential), it's certainly something that's going to weigh in the minds of rival services such as Twitter (particularly as Twitter has yet to establish its business model). As for what's next for Jaiku, all the founders will say is 'Check back in a few months to see what we've developed.'

[via Robert Scoble's Twitter]

Jaiku, the Finnish presence service, is turning up the heat on rivals such as Twitter today with the "ahead of schedule" final release of a dedicated Nokia Series 60 client for the service. The application, which runs all the time on compatible (switched on) handsets, has a pretty impressive feature list including:

• threaded conversations
• status updating
• a live updating buddy status list
• the sharing of phone-based calendars "to notify others of [your] upcoming events and availability."

The final release is now available on the Jaiku Mobile site.

The "What Am I Doing" web-service arena has been pretty competitive, with comparatively-long-established Twitter seeing competition from Jaiku and Pownce. Off course, all the services have their own merits, however the decision on which network to use has been a hotly debated topic, with Leo Laporte (of This Week in Tech fame) famously leaving Twitter for rival Jaiku.
Whilst Jaiku offers the ability to import Twitter (and other feeds), the ability to interact with, and monitor, both services simultaneously has been limited. This is where TwitKu comes in - both services, with the ability to post simulataneously and monitor your contacts, in a single window. Whilst some of the Download Squad team are fans of service-specific clients such as Twitterrific, this is certainly a move in the right direction for those of us with Web 2.0 sign-up mania!

[Via TechCrunch]

Many years ago, car manufacturers emphasized only new features to entice new buyers. Then some time in the early 90's car safety became important and car manufacturers put safety features top of the selling points for new model.

I feel that right now Web 2.0 service providers are operating like those car manufacturers before the shift to car safety.

Ever since the infant days of the internet, people have been putting more and more data online (emails, newsgroup posts and IRC conversations) without giving it any thought. But in the Web 2.0 age we are leaving behind a trail of data much more personal than ever before. We tell people about our lives, our thoughts, and where we've been with our photos (some even tagged with geo-data).

If Twitter and all its buzz in the web community can be considered its own growing world of sorts, then Leo Laporte - one of the service's foremost users according to Twitterholic - just sent ripples through its oceans by announcing his decision to move to Jaiku, a similar service that seems to have longer legs and quite a few more features. Since this was the first we've heard about Jaiku, we couldn't resist swinging by to sign up for an account to see what this micro-blogging, über-status message service has to offer.

In a nutshell: a lot. For starters, Jaiku acts as more of an 'online presence,' allowing you to do things like import RSS feeds from any of your other web properties (including photo feeds from the likes of Flickr) in addition to its fundamental feature of allowing you to post 140-character, SMS-friendly updates of what you're thinking or doing. Jaiku also has refreshing bits of genius sprinkled everywhere, such as the ability to group update notifications via email instead of sending single notices every time any contact posts something. On the downside, however, Jaiku doesn't seem to have nearly as much of a 3rd party following. It has no API (yet), so we're having a hard time finding Jaiku equivalents for TriQQr and the Iconfactory's spectacular Twitterrific client, let alone all the widgets, plugins and mashups which Twitter has quickly grown a reputation for.

Still, Jaiku offers plent of micro-blogging goodness, so give it a spin if Twitter simply isn't offering enough meat to sink your free time into.