Jaiku - the Finnish startup which at one point threatened Twitter to become the pre-eminent micro blogging tool before Google bought it - has now moved to a Google data center in preparation for its “transition” to the Google App Engine. Plus, it is now allowing its existing users to create unlimited invitations to the service. The news emerged after co-founder Jyri Engestrom, now a Google employee, emailed Jaiku users.

Here’s the email:

Dear mbites,

We’ve been working on the Jaiku service over the weekend after
finding an issue with one of our servers on Friday. As part of the
solution, we’re moving Jaiku to a Google data center.

This is something that we’d planned to do anyway, as part of our
future transition to Google App Engine. Now that we’ve moved, we’ll
need to ask you to review and accept a new terms of service and
privacy policy.

As a special thank you for your patience, we’d like to throw a
little nest-warming party and open unlimited invitations for Jaiku.

Please sign in at http://jaiku.com to review and accept the new terms.

Special notice to users of Jaiku Mobile: to reconnect Jaiku Mobile
after agreeing to the new terms, select ‘Go Online’ from the Options
menu on your phone.

See you there!
Jyri and the Jaiku team at Google

Frankly some might - justifiably - say this is a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted. Plus, existing users will have to sign a new terms of service and privacy policy, which means Jaiku is bound to lose existing users in the process.

As I wrote recently Jaiku looks like it will become another app in Google’s armoury, and possibly one which could seriously affect Twitter. However, it’s darn well taking its time…