My review of Jaiku

Best idea for a group yet, join now, the more the better fr everyone

Allright, I have firmly committed to writing reviews on every web service/ app that I have used in the past couple months. It is a daunting task seeing as I am an invite whore, but I have to straighten out the nonsense a little. I figure I will start with my favorite of the bunch. Now why is Jaiku my favorite? It is definitely the community. I have met some people on Jaiku that just love to talk tech, unabashed discussion on one of my favorite subjects. I have discovered more interesting sites(via links or feeds or channels) than anywhere else on the web. Now I know alot of people compare Jaiku to Twitter, and it is a valid point that there services are very similar, but just the fact that you can comment on items sets Jaiku apart by leaps and bounds. You may also be saying, well what about pownce, you can comment there, and you would be right, but most people do not spend their time at one site anymore they go to many, and with Jaiku, unlike Pownce you can have your feeds roll right into your conversations. i.e: A link to this post will automatically show up in my jaiku log through my RSS feed. It's a quick fix when you are jonesing for conversation, or if you want to see what pictures your friends are uploading(also supports flickr feeds well with a nice thumbnail to link to that persons photostream) it is not a sit on this site for hours type of thing(for me anyways) And if you can't be at your computer, Jaiku has a mobile site that has worked flawlessly for me when I just want to share something on the road, and you can also set it up to get comments on your posts delivered right to your email. Now are there downfalls, of course there are. The channel feature in Jaiku is great,, have a common interest with a bunch of people, set up a channel to converse back and forth about said interest, but good luck finding an existing one, seeing as there is no search feature for channels(or people for that matter) You gotta do some digging to get things exactly the way you want them. Want to find someone but don't have there name, start digging through other peoples friends lists and you should eventually find them. The other thing that kind of bugs me is they have this amazing mobile program for cell phones(similar to vox) but it only works on Nokia Phones, now I get the Scandanavian connection, but come on guys I want to play. Another really strong positive is the guys who created this are also very active participants and listen to their fellow community, I have seen many suggestions for improvements from the public that have been implemented pretty quickly. Not to mention the contributions from the community, including greasemonkey scripts and desktop applications. The community at Jaiku is passionate about this service and it shows.

My overall Assessment
Ease of Use: 8/10
Appearance:9/10
Community:10/10
Maturity Level(Depends on your friends I guess( I hate myspace)9/10