Google announced Tuesday that it purchased Jaiku, an “activity stream and presence sharing service.” What the heck does that mean? Basically, Jaiku creates interactive mobile phone applications. Founded in Finland, the relatively young company came together in February 2006 and debuted on the Internet July of that year. The Google Official Blog reports just how excited Google is about this acquisition; evidently the search engine behemoth plans to “use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products.” A message on the Jaiku homepage expresses reciprocal excitement but maintained that it was “too soon to comment on specific plans” for the partnership. Based out of Helsinki, Jaiku has been an international pioneer of “microblogging,” a feature which allows users to make quick text updates about their location and current activities. The dynamic benefit of most Jaiku features is they can be both updated and accessed from the web or a mobile device. Looking for more coverage on the matter? Jaiku posted a brief Q&A concerning the matter.
I’m anxious to see where this merger will lead Google as it continues to pursue the mobile market with dreams of its very own mobile phone.
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