Google purchased Jaiku, a microblogging platform, in 2007 hoping to make the service more reliable and more known over the Internet. Unfortunately, Google did not invest enough resources in the development of Jaiku and most users migrated towards other similar services like Tweeter and Identi.ca.

The good news is that Jaiku will continue to function and more it still has chances to be improved, as the site will be taken care of by a team of Google volunteers and by the open source software community.

 Google opened Jaiku’s source code, meaning that with some work the microblogging platform may regain some of its lost shine.

Google is now trying to shut down its lesser known applications while putting more focus on the best known of its applications. Developers will be able to use App Engine to deploy their own custom instances of the Jaiku server code which will include support for the OAuth secure authorization standard. The Jaiku source code will be under Apache license and the entire site will basically function under the open source concept.
People believed that Google’s implication in the microblogging phenomenon would lead to great innovations and that Jaiku will really be big. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, as Jaiku let other similar sites take the shine in this domain.

Jaike now has to enjoy some good quality maintenance from the team of volunteers in order to remain on the floating line. If this will not happen, Jaiku has all the chances to completely shut down, like it was the case with other similar sites.