Over the last few months, not only have I not had much time to update TipMonkies, but I also haven’t followed web 2.0 applications much at, more than likely due to the former reason, so I was very excited to get back into “the scene” and learn about a somewhat new service called Jaiku which aims to bring everything from your real life and your web life into one place. For those of you who have been using Twitter (yes, a review of Twitter is forecoming), you may find many of the same features in Jaiku, but if you’ve never used the service here’s what you should expect.

Jaiku is in essence, an enhanced version of a social bookmarking service. Jaiku users have access to calendars and events which they can easily share with any of their contacts. Additionally, the service allows you to import RSS feeds from any site or service which offers one, including news and photo sharing sites so you can create your own stream of media. Additionally, the service can also be used as a sort of mini blogging platform, where you can post updates of whatever it is you’re doing throughout the day. In essence, Jaiku extends your life onto the internet, to be shared with whomever you want to share it with.

Of course, such a presence tool would be of little use if it could not be updated whenever and wherever. Jaiku also offers its users the ability to send SMS messages from a mobile phone in order to update your location and activities from wherever you might be. The mobile edition of the service is only available for select Nokia phones, but expect a Java version to appear soon which will let you run the service on nearly any modern phone.

If you’re looking for something different from Twitter, or simply want to have always on access to your friends or family, Jaiku is definitely worth a try.

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