As announced on the Google Code blog / cross-posted to the Jaiku blog, Jaiku is going open source:

As we mentioned last April, we are in the process of porting Jaiku over to Google App Engine. After the migration is complete, we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License. While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers. With the open source Jaiku Engine project, organizations, groups and individuals will be able to roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine. The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, and we're excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform.

The rest of the Google Code announcement actual mentions the end of Dodgeball (also similar to Jaiku and Brightkite) plus the Mashup Editor (which I had never heard of). Technically, the Mashup Editor is also moving to the App Engine infrastructure.

I had heard rumours of the coming open source nature of Jaiku, but didn't think it would extend to Google itself essentially not further developing it. There has been talk of a tightening of focus, which is fine, but I think real time, Jaiku-like services (and really, Jaiku was first ... Twitter, Friendfeed, etc. came later) are going to become more important, not less.

The open sourcing of Jaiku should make one wonder about the recent funding for Identi.ca. I think what the Montreal Startup Fund guys are doing is fantastic, but don't know that I agree with putting money into open source projects before they've shown real traction.

That funding link points to a GigaOm post that also points to Twitter for Enterprise "clones" Yammer and Presently. I like both of those tools, and think they work great for internal / group communicatons. Stowe Boyd's write up of Presently is what made me go try it, plus we had a need for shared / private groups for Bootup Labs.

So, the open sourcing of Jaiku is one thing. The BIG thing is that this allows turn key public / private microblogging on a scalable infrastructure. No fail whale, you just get more resources via the underlying Google App Engine. And by turnkey, I mean anyone with a Google Apps for Domains account can follow a few steps to run their own instance, on their own domain.

Oh right, and by the BIG thing, I mean that this instantly catapults microblogging into a fully federated system: I set up jaiku.bootuplabs.com, which can federate with all the other Jaiku instances on Google App Engine. It's open source, so allowing one to map identities to Twitter, Identi.ca, or other systems is certainly possible as well. Or, as Presently does it, by pre-pending a special tag for posts you want to show up on other systems.

OK, I don't know if that last bit is true, I'm just hoping it is: will federation be turned on out of the box? Or an option? In any case, it's open source, so it would definitely be possible to add this feature.

One final question I have is where the centralized discussion of future features / development / etc. for Jaiku Engine?

Since my post on Redanyway, I've gone a few steps further into experimenting with Google Friend Connect.
Basically, it allows you to drop in a members system / social network onto any site. It doesn't need to be a CMS or a dynamic system at all, since it consists of just some Javascript that gets inserted wherever you like. You create a new network / site at the Friend Connect home, and then go on to upload a couple of files to your server. Select some widget options, copy and paste code, and you've got a place where visitors to your site can join your site's network.
Now, as opposed to creating yet-another-profile, visitors use their (presumably existing) Google Account to login. Google Accounts have Profiles attached to them (since about December 2007, although it's only recently that they are being talked about more). Here's my Google Profile.
There aren't really any built in "friends" in your everyday Google Account / Profile (in fact, in Google Reader it's really hard -- I enjoy Brendon Wilson's rant on this), so you can also activate several other networks to automatically connect with "friends" from those systems. Twitter and Plaxo are two that I experimented with. Orkut is also supported ... but when was the last time you signed into Orkut?
Twitter does that oh-so-lovable enter your username and password trick that leaves me feeling more than a bit queasy, but since I have a good size network, it seems pretty useful. You can then post to Twitter from within the widget to invite other people to join the network you've just entered. Plaxo does the better looking remote authentication and works just fine ... except I don't really use Plaxo all that much anymore.
OK, so now you're a "member" of a local "network"! What next? Well, on to the world of "Social Gadgets". There are ratings and a comment wall, and also support for OpenSocial apps. The OpenSocial apps are, I guess, the interesting part of this in the future, sort of allowing bridging of different data with mashups unique to the members on your own site. Except there's not much there today. Comments and ratings are fairly uninteresting when dynamic sites powered by Drupal or WordPress either do these things out of the box or can add them easily with a couple of plugins.
But....I'm not completely down on this system. In fact, I've been talking to Anthony of Farmstead Wines, who is a heavy Twitter user, about adding Friend Connect to his website. He can use his large Twitter network to build a social network around his website. It doesn't do a lot of interesting things *today* ... but you can already see how member profiles on Google Maps and other mashups will be trivial to implement in the future. Adding full network functionality to his website would cost a lot of money and time if needing to be "built in" directly, whereas the Friend Connect route lets Anthony build his network today, centered around the permalink of his own website (as opposed to some other system like ye old Ning).
I've included a Google Friend Connect network widget and wall widget after the jump. Jim Pick has also created one for the Vancouver Freebase.
Will you be adding Google Friend Connect to your site? Do you find it useful? Where is this heading?

I'm still using