Google heart Jaiku - Where Now For Twitter?

The news that Jaiku has been acquired by Google must make for interesting reading over at Twitter. Evan Williams, of course, is the man behind Pyra Labs, which became the base for Blogger and its subsequent purchase by Google. Everyone looking at the meteoric rise of Twitter into the Web 2.0 conscious was probably half expecting them to be the conscious-stream site that would end up in Mountain View. Google’s decision to plump for Jaiku then means the numbers game for Twitter just got interesting.

Of course Twitter has just taken on funding from Union Square Ventures at the end of July, so immediate cash-flow should not be a problem; but the revenue stream for Twitter has always been a touch unclear. We’ve seen some hints of SMS based advertising in the last few days with Twitter Tips being tested out on SMS (but not on the desktop or web versions); while strong hints from Williams from an interview with The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss in London shows that branded channels were also being considered. But none of these are concrete, and it remains to be seen what Twitter can do to show the returns that a Silicon Valley-financed company is expected to turn.

I personally thought that Twitter was your typical “built to flip” and Jaiku’s more open and detailed framework (e.g. allowing RSS feed import, group functions, and multimedia to be present) was going for a long term dedicated community building approach. It turns out that Twitter better start thinking about the long term, and start working on those income streams, because I can’t see who else would swoop in to buy them out. Microsoft may have a strong presence on smartphones, but they’re primarily focused on enterprise devices. While Yahoo could be tempted, their integration and approach to acquired companies may not match with the ambitions of the Twitter Team.

There’s a supreme irony if a large telecoms manufacturer turns round and buys up Twitter. Given Jaiku was founded by an ex-Nokia employee, it might be an interesting twist if a Finnish handset manufacturer were to turn round and consider picking up Twitter as part of a massive social network play across all of its latest handsets.

Maybe I should prep the Ovi heart Twitter posts for April next year?