Google buys Jaiku

I’ve known for a while that there was something pretty amazing about Jaiku. Now I’m not saying that it has taken tremendous talent on my part, cause Jaiku (along with Twitter) has been all the rave for a year or so now, but anyway.

Turns out the boys and girls at Google agree. They’ve just bought the Finish startup for an undisclosed amount of gDollars, and across the board of Jaiku users people are congratulating Jyri, Petteri and the rest of the Jai-crew.

This announcement ticked in from the Jaiku guys late last night:

Wonderful Jaiku users,

Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google!

While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together.

In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku.

We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google

Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

So, what’s the first order of business for Google? Beta-fy the sh%€! Jaiku is – as of now – in Google-beta-land, and will be invite only, for a while.

This Jaukunaut personally hopes that the purchase will mean tons of resources for the development of the phenomenon that has become Jaiku, and let me just join the choir of people who are shouting: ‘congrats guys! now knuckle down and make it even better!’

Read more on the Jaikido blog.