The Google Jaiku Acquisition - Mobile Based GPS Targeted Advertising?

I'm a little late on this post, but I've so preoccupied with potential layoffs at work and a video podcast that I'm working on  that I never had a chance to talk about the Digital Marketing Summit or even about Google buying Jaiku.

So lets talk about that Google acquisition.  My analysis: Google bought it to slowly bring targeted GPS advertisements to the market, similar to those seen in Minority Report. 

Google has made plenty of acquisitions. More recently they've been buying up a few pieces of Mobile related technologies, Zingku, GrandCentral, Dodgeball, Android, and now Jaiku. Until recently Google acquisitions barely made a dent in the online communities because they pretty much felt that Google knew what they were doing and were pretty sure that Google wouldn't mess them up to badly.  But recently the recent acquisition of Jaiku, seemed to get tons of press.  And personally I feel it was because Twitters felt that Twitter should have been Google's choice for the purchase. But unfortunately Twitter didn't have anything to offer Google in terms of development for their mobile strategy. As Chris Messina points out, "Twitter is made up of web people and is therefore a content strategy; Jaiku folks do web stuff pretty well, but they also do client stuff pretty well."  But where Chris gets things wrong is why Jaiku was brought into the Google-fold. 

I tend to agree to some extent with Chris Messina about Google is buying them for software reasons and it's definitely related to the Gphone project. Some people have been talking about headset this and headset that. I'm more inclined that Google is not worried about creating an iPhone.  More so it wants to be the software on the iPhone, possibly a Windows Mobile or Palm replacement.  This allows Google to get in on the wireless market, which we have seen in the past is definitely an area of interest for them, but unfortunately Chris missed the point. Chris believes the Jaiku purchase it the beginning of a Web 2.0 Address Book.

As Chris describes, the Web 2.0 Address Book as a way for people want to type in the name of the recipient and hit send and have it reach the destination, in whatever means necessary, and in as appropriate a manner as possible. The future will have various devices which are completely wireless, even wirelessly powered.  It's basically an IM-style buddy list accessible at any time any where. You won't need to sign in to 12 different services. Just 1, with 1 ID.  (Similar to Chris, I'd prefer an open version of that ID, but it could be Google.)  Instead of just seeing someone's inert photo when you bring up their record in your address book, you see all manner of social and presence data. Now with new Google Maps functionality you might be able to "track" your friends, if they so choose. But by the time this is fully implemented as Chris sees it, hcalendar, Google, O Auth will not even remotely look like they do now or even exist.

Google might find Chris's vision of the future an interesting and possibly will become true in some shape. I love Google and all, but the truth is Google doesn't care so much about the Web 2.0 Address Book for the consumer front. Google bought it to move it's ads to a mobile platform and how they will work in conjunction with the Address Book 2.0.  Google wants to target advertisements on the move.  It's very similar to how Minority Report displayed the advertisements of the future but in a more Mobile format.  Imagine this scenario, you decide to walk to work and your interacting with your friends while receiving targeted "advertisements" as you walk past stores.  You past Starbucks, and they're promoting their new iTunes single from the store...you then get close to the Blockbuster and their going to allow you to download the new Spiderman 7 to your mobile device.  So on and so forth.

Jaiku on the other hand could be part of their social networking strategy.  But like Sugar Attack, "[we] don't even expect to see Jaiku integrated into other Google properties. These acquisitions seem to be all about building on to Google's massive content ad network".

So how long will it before before we see ads on your Jaiku page? It did take awhile for YouTube to catch on.  Google certainly has the resources and technical expertise to make Jaiku into something special - well beyond where it is today.  So lets hope and pray for the best and hope user experience is factored into their advertising.

P.S. Chris, Apple does buy companies.

Tagged with: Google, Jaiku