Michael Koby

Last week, Robert Scoble asked the question of “Why is Jaiku not discussed as a competitor to Twitter” over on FriendFeed.  This started an rather large discussion about why FriendFeed is better than Jaiku.

Lets start with the basics, because many people might now know what Jaiku is.  Jaiku is a combination microblog and life streaming service that was purchased by Google and is currently invite only.  The thing is, Jaiku’s lifestreaming feature was similar to FriendFeed but was around before FriendFeed.  I will say that FriendFeed definitely implemented the lifestreaming idea better than Jaiku.

So to answer Mr. Scoble’s question, the reason that Jaiku is not discussed as a Twitter competitor is primarily due to its invite only status.  About 6 months ago, when I first got into the micro-blogging, I used Jaiku exclusively and they had their own set of downtime issues.  However, these might get resolved with Jaiku moving the Google App Engine.  However, the larger issue is that people can’t really use service because they need an invite to be a part of the conversations that take place there.

Robert Scoble is on record as stating that he will go where ever he can have interesting conversations so for him, a place that has a wall up on people’s ability to access the service, is not going to work so well for him.  This is why he has embraced FriendFeed with feverish zeal.

My opinion?  Jaiku had promise.  With the advent of FriendFeed I’m not sure what they can offer in the way of lifestreaming.  FriendFeed has really implemented this feature really well.  Also, now that Twitter is really looking into their stability issues and taking them more seriously, Jaiku might become a needless service within the next 6 months.  If Jaiku can finish their move to the Google App Engine and open up to let everyone sign up, they might have a chance at bring people over from Twitter (since it’s going to take them a while to fix their stability issues).  However, convincing folks to move from Twitter to Jaiku is going to be difficult, even given Twitters issues.

Twitter’s problems have revolved around 2 things 1) stability and 2) lack of features.  Well FriendFeed has pretty much solved both issues, though it is a different kind of service.  People for some reason stick with Twitter regardless of its issues.  With that in mind and the fact that FriendFeed has a solid lock on the lifestreaming concept, I think that Jaiku will die and dissappear into the ether of the internet.  Of course, Google could have plans for it with regards to their mobile OS, Android but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Yesterday Plaxo announced that they were in a deal to be bought by Comcast.  This resulted in a couple of more prominant online folks (Leo Laporte for example) looking for ways to cancel their Plaxo account.

I have to say, that this does give Comcast a nice collection of personal information on several of their customers (and their customers’ contacts).  So I have to wonder if deleting all my information and contacts out of Plaxo might be the way to go.  I haven’t made any drastic moves yet, just thinking about what I should do.

Doing so would mean I’d have to find a new place to backup my contacts, now if I could just find a place that offers over-the-air BlackBerry contact/calendar sync and does it for free (or a really cheap yearly fee like Plaxo).

Last week, Nine Inch Nails released a new album.  This album was released digitally and all you had to do to be able to download it was goto http://theslip.nin.com/ and enter your email address.  Doing this, will result in a download link arriving in your email box.  Click the link takes you to a page where you can chose high quality Mp3 files, FLAC flies, Apple Lossless, and even the original WAV files.  All for free.  I have yet to listen to this latest offering from Nine Inch Nails, known as The Slip but I was sick most of last week and will get around to it this week.

This is the second album that Nine Inch Nails has released in 2 months (the first Ghosts costs $5 for a digital download).  Sure, you have to give them your email address which no doubt puts you on some kind of mailing list.  But for free music, I really don’t mind. 

What does any of this have to do with the title of this post? I’m glad you asked.  You see, I don’t really like Nine Inch Nails musically.  Why?  I’ve never really been the “mad at the world” type.  Stuff happens, I deal, and move on as best as possible.  I’m not saying that Trent Reznor is not talented, in fact I think quite the contrary and find him to be an incredibly talented musician.  I just don’t like his music.  And a person does not have to like everything.  Also, there are a couple of NIN songs that I do like but most of them are the singles (”Hand that Feeds” and “Head Like a Hole” for example).

Did I sign up and download this latest effort though?  You betcha.  I’ll listen to almost anything once.  And I will especially listen to anything at least once that didn’t cost me any money to hear it in the first place.  Sure, I could have probably found the album via BitTorrent sites and not had to sign up for the mailing list, but I’d rather get the free music directly from the person providing it.  So Nine Inch Nails got one more person (someone who doesn’t normally listen to their music) to download and listen to their new album.  All because it was free.

For the record, I also bought Ghosts I-IV because it was five dollars for full lossless files.  That’s a hard deal to turn down.  Also, I did it because I want to prove that distribution methods like that can work.  Also to help prove that if you offer cheap or free music, there will be people to download and promote it.  But think about these facts:

• I don’t really care too much for Nine Inch Nails musically (even though I think Mr. Reznor has talent).
• I paid $5 dollars for a NIN album because it was $5 dollars which is darn cheap for 36 tracks in complete lossless format.
• Finally, I downloaded a free album provided by Nine Inch Nails
• Nine Inch Nails made a sale off of someone not really into their music too much and got another another set of ears to listen to 2 of their albums because they offered cheap and free music.

Robert Scoble recently said that he was moving away from TechMeme as his homepage in favor of FriendFeed.  He has also stated on several occasions that he goes where the conversation is and that everyone he follows on Twitter (which is everyone that follows him) is relevent and interesting.

This is a new approach to social media.  Everyone is a friend (both onine and offline), and everyone has something interesting to say.  This is a far cry from the tech/bloging elite that used to be in the game (and which many consider Scoble to be a part of).  It is interesting that someone on Scoble’s level would take such a drastic step away from that blogging elite in search of the smaller voice.  But he might be onto something.

You see lately, I’ve moved away from sites like Digg, where I used to get a nice chunk of my daily news (both tech and other kinds) to sites like FriendFeed (via AlertThingy or Twhirl) to get my news.  Sure I subscribe to a lot of the more “famous” bloggers on FriendFeed, but I’ve taken the outlook of subscribing to everyone that subscribes to me (assuming it doesn’t look like spam when i look at the account) on FriendFeed and Twitter in hopes of finding new and more interesting content.

I think part of the idea behind this is the concept that not everyone thinks like you do.  If you only listen to like-minded people you never really learn anything.  The search to learn more and gain more knowledge about all areas of a subject, be it tech, parenting, or even personal finance can lead to a better understanding of the world around you.  As an “on record” republican, I like having discussions with democrats and other more liberal than me.  Because I learn things.  This is much of the same reason for following so many people on various social sites.  The more input you have, the more you are likely to be able to output because you understand so much more.  Occasionally though, you will get a person who just wants to be rude.  Fortunately, you can decide whom to follow and unfollow at your convenience.  This makes it easy to control the input you receive.

Of course I’m not suggesting that constant input is the road to complete understanding or enlightenment.  And just because you read something does not mean you understand it.  But there is some benefit to listening to a constant flow of opinions both agreeable and not.  It also brings you more voices.  As more people subscribe to you, you can subscribe back and hear what they have to say on things.  This is a great way to keep up with both the A-Listers and the new listers.