As you’ve not doubt heard by now, Google today purchased the status-update, lifestreaming service Jaiku. The second I read about the deal, I, like most everyone else immediately thought, ‘why not Twitter‘? There are some interesting theories out there including one that involves bad blood between Twitter founder Ev Williams and the company he briefly worked for after his sold his other company, Blogger, to Google – but in reality simply looking at Jaiku again for the first time in months, I think Google may have chosen them because they simply have more features then Twitter.

Jaiku is no doubt going to be playing a central roll in Google’s upcoming blitz on the social networking scene, and while it may have been more buzz-worthy to buy Twitter, Jaiku gives them less work to do if they want compete right away with the likes of Facebook. What is more confusing to me about the purchase is that if Google really was just more interested in lifestreaming than status updates, why didn’t they go for FriendFeed, yet another service started by former Googlers (and some big time ones behind Google Maps and Gmail)? You don’t see too many folks leaving Google, but when they do is bad blood always part of the deal? Why has Google spurned not one, but two former groups of employees to buy a completely outsider company?

Interesting as well is that Google already tried once (no doubt half-heartedly) to launch their own status update service, it was called ‘Daily Me‘. I wrote at the time that it could signal an upcoming “Status War” between Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook and the like. Google is now apparently taking the approach: when you can’t beat em, buy em.

While I signed up for both Twitter and Jaiku around the same time, I now use Twitter several times a day while today marks the first time in months that I’ve signed in to Jaiku. But that is one of the great things about Jaiku, even though I haven’t physically updated for months, its been doing it for me by pulling in my blog and Flickr feeds. You can add many other feeds as well including your Twitter feed! The main reason I went with Twitter over Jaiku was simply because I knew more people using it, with Google on board that could change very rapidly (once the new sign-up freeze is lifted).

Steve Rubel made what I think is a pretty good prediction on Twitter earlier today. He thinks that with Google buying Jaiku, Yahoo is going to scoop up Twitter sometime in the next month and a half. Remember that Yahoo property MyBlogLog added Twitter status a while ago, which is interesting because the only other side widget they have like that is for Flickr (which of course is an actual Yahoo property as well). If Yahoo does go for Twitter, does Microsoft then step in and buy Pownce (remember MS already has an advertising deal with Digg)?

One thing is certain, Google is definitely piling up the pieces for its big social networking push. Who knows, maybe they’ll even buy Twitter too eventually just to make sure all their bases are covered. Of course that may raise some eyebrows in the Justice Department with Google cornering the status-update market and then the EU may boycott statuses all together.

[UPDATE]: Blognation USA also has a good write-up on the deal and brings up something that I completely forgot about: Jaiku is big with the mobile updates, this could also be a very helpful move for Google’s GPhone initiative.