I'm a huge twitter fan and so haven't checked out Jaiku, but from what I understand it's basically the same idea. You send and receive short updates with your list of friends.

Very interesting that the big G swooped in and picked up Jaiku and not Twitter. Maybe Biz & Ev weren't looking to sell?

Check out Zannel and tell me if it compares favorably to Twitter, Jaiku etc: www.zannel.com

This makes sense for Google, but i would have thought Twitter would have been the one given their traction, etc...

The branding and UI for Jaiku seems more consumer friendly to me than Twitter. I can't say i've used Jaiku, but from that perspective, it already feels like a very accessible service for the masses, not just early adopters...like Twitter.

I use Jaiku, but have never used Twitter, so can't really compare the two services as a user. I just had a quick look at Twitter and all I can say is that I find Jaiku's user interface and design (it's "look and feel") more attractive than Twitter's.

Does Twitter support RSS feeds from the user's Flickr account, blog, clips...? This is something I like about Jaiku: you can also share the rest of your "online presence" there (your blog posts or Flickr updates automatically appear as new "jaikus").