Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Changes for Jaiku and Farewell to Dodgeball and Mashup Editor



Google has long believed that thoughtful iteration is the best way to build useful products for our users. As part of that process, we are always looking for ways to better focus our teams on the products that can have the most impact.

As we mentioned last April, we are in the process of porting Jaiku over to Google App Engine. After the migration is complete, we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License. While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers.

With the open source Jaiku Engine project, organizations, groups and individuals will be able to roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine. The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, and we're excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform.

Some of you may also be familiar with Dodgeball.com, a mobile social networking service that lets you share your location with friends via text message. We have decided to discontinue Dodgeball.com in the next couple of months, after which this service will no longer be available. We will communicate the exact time-frame shortly.

Finally, in the spirit of onward and upward, we have decided to shut down the Mashup Editor, currently in limited private beta, in favor of the more powerful App Engine infrastructure. Existing Mashup Editor applications will stop receiving traffic in six months, and we hope you will join our team in making the exciting transition to App Engine.

40 comments:

  1. So long, and thanks for all the fish?

    This is nice. I think it's time to move to laconica and twitter full time.

    To all the people I've met on Jaiku, you are awesome.

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  2. My predictions were correct than from few days ago. You are shutting Jaiku Down.

    @Livecrunch
    http://www.livecrunch.com

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  3. Please Dont shutdown jaiku

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  4. Thank you to the volunteer team of Googlers for your time and efforts to make Jaiku open source.

    It will be interesting to see how this will impact other projects such as Laconica

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  5. save dodgeball!

    it still works better and more efficiently than almost every other location-based social networking service.

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  6. @krisguy : this is such a nice quote... ;-)

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  7. RIP Dodgeball. To bad you will never reach your full potential.

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  8. Google you are fools, develop Jaiku.

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  9. Google you are stupid.

    Jaiku is most definately with saving and developing.

    So it's either Twitter (a noisy bar) or something else.

    It's a pity. All the Jaiku people I have met have been excellent people-how know how to converse.

    Its a pity Google. You're loosing a great service.

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  10. Google you are stupid.

    Jaiku is most definately with saving and developing.

    So it's either Twitter (a noisy bar) or something else.

    It's a pity. All the Jaiku people I have met have been excellent people-how know how to converse.

    Its a pity Google. You're loosing a great service.

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  11. Oh damn. Why close Jaiku, and make friends with Twitter? Fark you.

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  12. Definitely seems quite foolish to me. You could have done quite a lot with Jaiku I'm sure. Oh well.

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  13. Can someone please explain why Dodgeball is oing down?

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  14. "we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License" - why didn't google do the same for lively? it would be fun to build AND host your own room...

    RIP Jaiku...

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  15. 1. Beef up Google Office to be the truly generative and dynamic alternative to MS Office that it was supposed to be (not a lame parody like OO).

    2. It will naturally rely heavily on a lot of complex code which the IE team could a hard time keeping up with.

    3. With a truly awesome Office suite right there in the browser, the operating system start to get kind of irrelevent, doesn't it?

    You could pull off a trifecta, forcing Microsoft to be on the defensive on three fronts at the same time. All you have to do is stop neglecting Google Docs. Kill these stupid distractions, all of them. Kill the quotes nonsense, the trends nonsense, and the audio indexing nonsense.

    Ignore these sentimental stooges and go in for the kill!

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  16. I'm sad that Dodgeball is being shuttered, mainly because I thought it could have beat Twitter had it gotten more resources early on. It still beats BrightKite, Loopt, and other similar services.

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  18. That's a shame. I found a new microblog site that looks promising. They claim to be twitter for freelancers and professionals. It's called blellow.com. They are allowing people to sign up to beta test it, but I don't think it's live yet.

    We'll see how it compares to jaiku - they have groups similar to jaiku's channels.

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  19. So, since you're cleaning house, when will you get rid of all the FAILED Google Web Search Variations? You know, like Google Product Search, Google Book Search, Google Scholar, Google Finance, GOOG-411, Google Health, iGoogle, Google Notebook, Google Checkout, Google Patent Search, Google Product Search (originally called Froogle - lol!), and ALL THE REST? When will you admit that pretty much anything beyond BASIC WEB SEARCH has failed? Google Video's spectacular failure was masked by Google's subsequent purchase of YouTube. Unfortunately for Google, most of the rest of this stuff has already failed (and there's no really viable Plan B that can hide it). LOL!!!

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  20. Google, you're making me sad. Don't be evil, don't hut down Jaiku. Cause that's just evil. You're with us or you're against us.

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  21. I am puzzled. On the upside, Jaiku being FOSS may be very cool, if a sufficient number of talented peopel actively contribure.

    On the downside, if Jaiku teh service (on Goggle server farm) is shut down, that will suck.

    Jaiku unlike most microblogging services handles threaded comments exactly the way I expect them to work.

    I hope the original Jaiku team can find a pony in here somewhere.

    thanks guys, we have high hopes.

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  22. @Jim
    Just because you do not use one of Google's product doesn't mean they should shut it down, nor that no one uses it.
    iGoogle, checkout, book search and google finance are used by a LOT of people and in no way have failed.

    Please stop being foolish.

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  23. Some nameless, faceless blogger said: "Just because you do not use one of Google's product [sic] doesn't mean they should shut it down, nor that no one uses it."

    I reply: just because you and a tiny little handful of others might (might) use these FAILED OFFERINGS occasionally, doesn't mean that they haven't (in fact) FAILED. The facts: nearly everything Google has tried to do (on its own) beyond Basic Web Search has failed to take off. I understand why you can't see it... really, I do... LOL!!!

    Stop being such a blind sheep (if that’s possible).

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  24. Please release Dodgeball as open source!! This project would make an incredible contribution to the open source community. I don't understand why you would open source Jaiku when there is already laconica but are set on throwing Dodgeball in the garbage. Dodgeball could have been awesome had it been a higher priority, so what better way to make it something then to give it to a community that will make it THEIR priority?

    Please open source Dodgeball.

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  25. I'm really disappointed to see Dodgeball go. It is very popular here in Seattle, and by far the best location-based social networking tool out there. I would really love to see someone else pick up Dodgeball. I know that if they put their minds to it they can make it profitable.

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  26. Rather than shut down Dodgeball why not do something truely unique.

    Open source it (figuratively speaking). In other words... hand over the reigns to the community and let them run with it.

    Would at the very least be interesting.

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  27. And there goes all my belief in the Microblogging services. If the only service that actually had a chance of making it, with a decent interface, an awesome concept, and an excellent community, is being shut down, i don't expect a lot from other services. So long Jaiku, it was great while it lasted!

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  28. Can you give some more information concerning the timeline? Will the Jaiku WebClient be opensourced, too?

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  29. I think you shouldn't kill jaiku

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  30. To the Matt Parrott: it is, I believe, currently unfeasible to attempt to build something like MS Office in a browser, especially with AJAX. Google's target with that is a demographic that needs quick access and not necessarily the spectacular or complicated: and it works.

    Doing too much with Google's Office Online could badly increase bandwidth and make the service unfriendly to the huge number of people who do not have blazing fast bandwidth, which is quite a lot.

    Good move to streamline Google. : ) Thanks for the services you do provide; I'm actually considering, at least in the near future, opening a Google Apps account myself!

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  31. @me: converse? It is rather odd, considering the service originated in Finland - perhaps one of the quietest places anywhere... even on public transport!

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  33. So, how can I buy the business of Dodgeball.com? Who is a contact person? Is there any possibility that they continue hosting the service with the payment from us?

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  34. I think it is really lame that you chose to get rid of dodgeball. At least come up with a viable replacement. I hope that your purchase of dodgeball netted you the technology you needed from it.

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  35. Optimization & sanation! There are some benefits to all of us in the situation - just stop panic & look ahead!
    Google RULES!!!

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  36. Google will need to concentrate on services that earn money now we are in times of recession. App Engine will earn them money if businesses use it as a Cloud platform. On balance I would prefer improvements to the GAE Cloud platform and as such I am happy that resources are redirected - however I understand the frustrations of users investing time into a framework that is depreciated before reaching full potential.

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  37. I spent long time testing developing applications with Google Mashup editor. Its very sad to hear about the shutdown of this product. What will happen to the existing applications developed on it? Can we still access them?

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  38. Way to commit the ULTIMATE SIN, guys, the DESTRUCTION OF INFORMATION!

    Come on, Killing Dodgeball, and not releasing the code for someone else to use? You're just being a bunch of selfish assholes! Give me the code, or integrate it into another project!

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  39. Why is everyone moaning about Jaiku? It *will* continue to exist and be maintained. By volunteers.

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  40. I expected micro blogging from Google. Ok anyway we have the another choice as Google Buzz. :)

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