Yesterday I wrote about using Twitter – the nanoblogging social networking application – as a bridge to sync profile status across multiple social networking sites. Well it turns out that Twitter has a competitor clone named Jaiku.

At this time Jaiku is still in beta-by-invite only. So of course, I signed up for an initiation code. From what I can see on the Take the Tour section, Jaiku has a nicer interface than Twitter and has added functionality. Think slim down version of Facebook with no (annoying) applications.

Summary of key points from the Jaiku tour:

• status updates cleverly called Jaikus
• icon-based updates
• customized backgrounds
• you Web feeds
• your location
• Jaiku badge for your blog
• friends’ latest updates
• commenting capability
• see friends’ availability, location, and calendar events if they have Jaiku Mobile on their phone
• text status updates from mobile phone

For smartphone users:

• use Jaiku as your phone book
• browse and post Jaikus
• add comments
• share your location
• share your availability
• share your calendar events
• share who you’re with

From an interface perspective, Jaiku will definitely be the choice over the interface-unfriendly Twitter. It is more accessible to users who don’t want to memorize texting commands to perform basic operations. As a testimony to its expected popularity, there is already a Jaiku application on Facebook. Social network sites don’t succeed based on great technology (MySpace anyone?), but based on the number of users they attract. A user is more likely to register to the same social networking site/service as his/her friends. Since Jaiku is more user-friendly and “pretty”, it will likely win this clone war.

Rafe Needleman offers his perspective on the Twitter-Jaiku dilemma as well as a clever solution in his blog post How to win in the Twitter vs. Jaiku battle.

As for now, my purpose for using Twitter is sync my profile status across multiple social network sites. I have no intention of using Twitter for other purposes, therefore it will not conflict with my usage of Jaiku (and hopefully I get an invitation code real soon).

I’m sure some really smart developer will come up with a Jaiku sync tool to update the profile status on social network site using a mobile phone.