Google revealed Wednesday that it will be discontinuing its development of the Jaiku microblogging service and opening the source code. The service will remain in operation on Google App Engine and it will be maintained by a community of volunteer Google developers with the assistance of the broader open source software community. The move is part of a broader set of changes that Google is undertaking to streamline its service offerings and shut down some of its lesser-known web applications.

Developers will also be able to use App Engine to deploy their own custom instances of the Jaiku server code. The new version of the service includes support for the OAuth secure authorization standard. The source code will be available 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," the company reports. "We're excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform."

When Google acquired Jaiku in 2007, we had hoped that the search giant's entry into the microblogging space would open the door for innovative tie-ins with the company's other services. Unfortunately, Google didn't commit enough resources to the service to move it forward and keep it running reliably. This compelled many users to flee to Twitter and Identi.ca.

It's unclear how the latest change in direction will impact the service. If the volunteer developers can maintain it properly and add enticing new features, it could regain some of its relevance. On the other hand, if it stagnates further in the absence of Google's involvement, it might eventually be abandoned entirely like Pownce, which recently shut down.