OStatic

Of the many social networking and microblogging tools available, Twitter is the application that gets the most warm and fuzzy comments whenever I talk to people about it. Recently, Network World reported on 12 CIOs Who Twitter, and now it is out with its list of 12 Open Source Movers and Shakers Who Twitter. While some high-profile folks in the open source community tweet on a protected basis, many others tweet in public. You can easily follow their musings.

Earlier today, we reported on new financing for Indenti.ca, an open source variant on Twitter's microblogging service. Google has its own alternative to Twitter, Jaiku, which it acquired in October of 2007. It hasn't gone far on its own, but Google has just announced that it will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase and will open source it.? 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, according to Google's post.

Identi.ca?s open source alternative to Twitter got a vote of confidence this week with an investment from the VCs at Montreal Start Up, reports Alistair Croll on GigaOm. While the amount of the financing wasn?t disclosed, Montreal Start Up Managing Partner John Stokes said the firm invests between C$150,000 ($120,135) and C$400,000 ($320,329) per deal, he says. Identi.ca's APIs are Twitter-compatible, and we reported on many of its advantages the other day, here. Check the GigaOm story for thoughts on how Identi.ca has an open source platform on which to build.

When I began using Twitter earlier last year, I'm not sure that I was aware of its open source competitor, Identi.ca, or its relationship to Laconica.

While Twitter has had its share of knocks, from outtages to phishing attacks, I've not been personally affected. Microblogging has been more of a diversion than a tool (though this isn't always the case), Twitter is ubiquitous, and I simply used it.

I'm not sure what made me take Identi.ca for a test drive, or look further at what Laconica can offer open blogging standards and social networks as a whole. The open nature and standards have the needle spiking wildly on my geek-meter, and a lot of that spiking can be directly attributed to the way these services benefit everyone -- whether they be a tech enthusiast, or slightly less tech averse than a Luddite.