Microsoft has decided to capitalize on the popularity of Windows Live Messenger in China, launching a new service called MSN Juku, which they call a “local innovation developed by MSN China.”

The service, however, is a lot like Twitter: it lets users connect with their other Live Messenger concats and post 140-character messages. There’s a couple of important visual differences compared to Twitter; old messages scroll to the right, for example, just like in another Twitter clone, Plurk. But it’s still a microblogging service, and one local media report actually called it a knock-off of Plurk, which is also quite popular in Asia.

Juku, which is currently in beta, brings several other innovations to the table; it lets users play games and earn prizes, something that sounds like science-fiction for the traditionally feature-shy Twitter. However, at this point, Microsoft hasn’t announced any plans to internationalize the service and perhaps position it as a direct competitor to Twitter.

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Microsoft Launches its own Twitter… in China