Jaiku (like Twitter but better)

[denny]

Does anybody want an invite to Jaiku? It's roughly speaking a cross between LJ and Twitter - a microblogging service, accessible from your mobile (I know there's a S60 client and mobile Java client which will work on most high-end phones, not sure what others exist) and the web, you can send SMS to it, and it can send SMS to you but most people disable that feature so it's not annoying (unlike Twitter, which can wind people up if they have active friends on there).

Your initial post to a Jaiku thread is limited to 140ish characters (similar to Twitter in that respect), but then there's a comments thread under each initial post, and they're unlimited... so you get more interesting discussions on there than on Twitter, and more potential for finding new interesting people in the same way that you can on LJ, when they comment on one of your friend's posts.

It has some interesting extra features, such as letting you set your location, which it remembers from then on in relation to whichever mobile network cell you were near at the time. So for instance, whenever I'm visiting denari, anyone using Jaiku can tell that I'm in 'Manor House' and take a fair guess at where I might be. It also can tell people who I'm with, if we all have Jaiku installed and bluetooth turned on at the time. Stalkers delight! :)

Seriously though, it's a nice little service, and I recommend checking it out to anyone who thought Twitter was a neat idea but a bit rough around the edges in actual use... Jaiku smooths a lot of those edges off quite nicely.

Update: Forgot to mention, in case it wasn't clear - you probably don't want to use Jaiku unless you have a decent phone and a data bundle of some kind - it goes through maybe 5 or 10MB a month in casual use, potentially a lot more if you have a lot of friends and leave it turned on all the time.


I've got 10 3 invites to hand out - if nobody claims them by the weekend, I'm going to stick them on an invite-sharing site for random people to use.

Comments

[denari.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a go

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Invite on its way to your gmail now.

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

Apparently http://www.twitku.com will update both twitter and Jaiku at the same time too. Can't vouch for effectiveness, having not used it myself though...

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I'm finding I use them for different kinds of post most of the time... although an updater that could optionally do Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook and LJ might be handy on the odd occasion that something particularly interesting happens to me :)

[kotenok.livejournal.com]

The only downside I found with Jaiku was in respect to sms updates - my phone isn't really capable of running it as a web app, so I wanted to update via sms. Problem is, their number is based in Sweden, so instead of using my unlimited messages and it costing me nothing, it would have cost me 30p a message to update from my phone.

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

Go on then... I'm happy to try it out.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

What's the best email to use for you?

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

Gmail.

(Oh and if you think of a phone that's better for mail / web browsing than my current Krzr, let me know... I'm due an upgrade and don't even know where to start...)

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Invite sent.

It might be difficult to get a phone that was worse for web-browsing, judging by the laughing going on around me in the office when I asked them (to be fair, I am surrounded by mobile web geeks).

Generally speaking I'd recommend either a Nokia or Sony Ericsson smartphone - make sure it's running Symbian's Series 60 (S60) operating system, then the Jaiku application will work on it, as will many other odds and ends. How good a phone you can get obviously depends on how much you spend either on it, or on your contract each month. I tend to just get the best (most feature-filled) handset that I can get for free.

You might want to avoid the N95 if battery life is a concern for you - they tend to require daily recharging (or more frequent if used a lot), which can be a pain.

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I know... I hope you told them you were asking for a clueless blonde ;-)

Symbian! Love! (and potential winning argument)
So far, I've been recommended an iPhone (hmmm, maybe, but O2), and indeed a Blackberry, but keyboards aside, I'm not bowled over. What say the geeks about either?

N95 - yes I'd get annoyed with that.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

The iPhone isn't 3G (meaning it's slower at transferring data than most smartphones). Other than that it's fairly nice, but yeah, I wouldn't go near O2 unless they were paying me.

The Blackberry is a bit bulky and business-oriented I think, although I haven't used one myself.

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

I'm looking at my boss' Blackberry (Vodafone-branded, no model no. visible, turns out to be a Pearl), and actually, it's not vastly bigger than, say, a Razr. I might have to play with one...

Cheers for the advice.

[mr_magicfingers]

N95 8Gb, better battery life than you'd expect. Yes, I charge mine daily, I just keep a usb zip cable in my bag, everyone's got a pc/playstation/wii these days. How often do you actually need to go 3 days without recharging.

I don't think there's another phone on the market to touch the n95 to be honest if you want a true smartphone.

In 6 months when the new iphone comes out it will change a lot of things, but right now it's not worth the money. Blackberry is great in a corporate environment but it's not really a smart phone, camera's are rubbish and it's not that great for web browsing from what I've seen.

Right now, on my N95 I'm running a voip client ( can call canada for nothing on a wifi hotspot) a skype client, google maps with real time gps, direct upload of photos to flickr and livejournal, I can watch movies and listen to music, have both my gmail accounts configured on it, run LJ and jaiku clients, a few games, stream live video to the web etc etc. I go away for a weekend and I dont' bother taking my laptop now. With a small folding bluetooth keyboard (£18 from play.com) I could use it as a replacement for the laptop on holidays, blogging, diary, camera etc. If i were going travelling I think I could get away with just that to be honest.

It makes iphone's jealous when they can't find a wifi hotspot and I turn my phone into one so they can use it to connect.

I'm sounding a bit evangelical aren't I. I'm really impressed with this thing.

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

Can I play with yours? :-)

[mr_magicfingers]

Oh baby!!!

I think that can be arranged ;-)

[kilinrax.livejournal.com]

Yep.

Email...

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

first name at psy dj?

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Sent to your gmail address (found on Facebook).

[squiddity.livejournal.com]

One here, please!

moofking (at) gmaill (dot) com

And Whatelydude will be overjoyed to see us all adopting his favourite toy :*)

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

On its way.

Yeah, he spends more time on Jaiku than he does on Twitter. Be afraid. :)

[mr_magicfingers]

When you run out, point them my way, I have 9 left