Everyone matters
September 7th, 2006
I keep getting feedback on Jaiku from friends and interested people, and also from investors and other entrepreneurs. It really splits opinions, and everyone - including non-technical people - feel strongly when they see Jaiku.
There are those who are really excited and say this is exactly what they have wanted all along. Also, there are some people who tell me they wouldn’t want others to know their presence - except maybe their partner or hand-picked family members/friends. I might be slightly biased (grin) but luckily most people seem to love it.
Many of those people are still waiting to join the game because right now Jaiku requires a handset and a data plan, and it takes work to install. Jaiku’s value is in the network of family and friends, and that value gets realized when everyone can participate.
So we’re now taking a look at the part of the beta that’s still almost completely missing - that is, the Web service. We want to make it easy for everyone to share their rich presence - not just the folks with cool phones.
There’s work involved in building a server that can handle both asynchronous, every once-in-a-while updates that we get from the Web and synchronous, always-on presence we get from phones. We can build this cool new thing in small steps. Keep the feedback coming so we know what works and where it hurts. Thanks!