Mozilla Acquires Pocket(blog.mozilla.org)
blog.mozilla.org
Mozilla Acquires Pocket
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/
445 コメント
Oh, what a twist!
In a story that began two years ago with Pocket's integration by Mozilla [1] in Firefox [2], large segments of the userbase spoke out with scathing criticism.
This, at first blush, appears unrelated: Mozilla previously announced its Context Graph initiative, which was a bold undertaking to be built partially upon a new and emerging set of W3C standards to take back some of the control over linkage, metadata, and the consumption and annotation of web content [3] from big incumbent providers who run content portals, content silos, or content aggregators (largely the usual suspects, including Google, Facebook [4], Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo [5]).
To understand this play, temporarily forget about Mozilla the Foundation, and think about Mozilla as a strategic competitor to the above. In the case of Pocket, a hard-to-deny side effect is that Pocket's presence in Firefox, despite the exact nature of the integration, is likely here to stay. While this is bound to frustrate many, Mozilla's competitors routinely ship software or entire platforms with tight captive integrations, against which competition has proven difficult to mount solely on the merits of values and philosophical purity.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=firefox%20pocket [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=mozilla%20pocket [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13729525#13740110 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375451#13375917 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493
In a story that began two years ago with Pocket's integration by Mozilla [1] in Firefox [2], large segments of the userbase spoke out with scathing criticism.
This, at first blush, appears unrelated: Mozilla previously announced its Context Graph initiative, which was a bold undertaking to be built partially upon a new and emerging set of W3C standards to take back some of the control over linkage, metadata, and the consumption and annotation of web content [3] from big incumbent providers who run content portals, content silos, or content aggregators (largely the usual suspects, including Google, Facebook [4], Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo [5]).
To understand this play, temporarily forget about Mozilla the Foundation, and think about Mozilla as a strategic competitor to the above. In the case of Pocket, a hard-to-deny side effect is that Pocket's presence in Firefox, despite the exact nature of the integration, is likely here to stay. While this is bound to frustrate many, Mozilla's competitors routinely ship software or entire platforms with tight captive integrations, against which competition has proven difficult to mount solely on the merits of values and philosophical purity.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=firefox%20pocket [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=mozilla%20pocket [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13729525#13740110 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375451#13375917 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493
Something I've always wished Pocket would do is download an offline copy of videos I add to the list (using, say, youtube-dl [1]), so I can watch them on the subway, etc. But they never did this, presumably either for legal reasons, or because it was a giant waste of bandwidth considering a huge percentage of Pocketed articles never get read.
Now that Mozilla is promising to open-source this, I eagerly await adding this feature to my own fork :)
-- [1]: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
Now that Mozilla is promising to open-source this, I eagerly await adding this feature to my own fork :)
-- [1]: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
Pocket, for me, is a weird product/feature. I've tried to use it, but it ends up just being like a clumsy bookmarking feature.
Allegedly, you can read things offline, but that feature never works for me. It seems the feature for offline reading doesn't exist at all in Firefox (which I'd assumed was the point of its integration, but my assumption was wrong), and I've tried the Chrome desktop app and the Android mobile app ..nothing I save to pocket is ever readable without a data connection. It must work for some content for some people because I see people talking about it like it does. But, without that feature I see literally no utility in Pocket...it's just a clunky bolted-on bookmark manager, and so I end up going back to bookmarks with tags. I use Sync and I have Firefox on all of my devices. So, my bookmarks go with me.
So, I guess it's good that it's going open source. I wasn't comfortable with the way integration was presented back when they added it...it wasn't at all apparent, to me, that Pocket was a third party for-profit entity when the "setup your pocket" process launched in Firefox, since I'd never heard of it before that. But, it still seems like a solution looking for a problem. I'll give it another look. Maybe I was just unlucky with my choices of what to save...but it seems like if offline reading is not going to work on a page (for whatever reason) it should warn you. It'd suck to get on a train/plane or get lost in the woods, with plans to catch up on some reading, only to find there's nothing there.
But, maybe that's not even the primary purpose of Pocket? I dunno, it's still pretty fuzzy to me wtf it's for, if not that.
Allegedly, you can read things offline, but that feature never works for me. It seems the feature for offline reading doesn't exist at all in Firefox (which I'd assumed was the point of its integration, but my assumption was wrong), and I've tried the Chrome desktop app and the Android mobile app ..nothing I save to pocket is ever readable without a data connection. It must work for some content for some people because I see people talking about it like it does. But, without that feature I see literally no utility in Pocket...it's just a clunky bolted-on bookmark manager, and so I end up going back to bookmarks with tags. I use Sync and I have Firefox on all of my devices. So, my bookmarks go with me.
So, I guess it's good that it's going open source. I wasn't comfortable with the way integration was presented back when they added it...it wasn't at all apparent, to me, that Pocket was a third party for-profit entity when the "setup your pocket" process launched in Firefox, since I'd never heard of it before that. But, it still seems like a solution looking for a problem. I'll give it another look. Maybe I was just unlucky with my choices of what to save...but it seems like if offline reading is not going to work on a page (for whatever reason) it should warn you. It'd suck to get on a train/plane or get lost in the woods, with plans to catch up on some reading, only to find there's nothing there.
But, maybe that's not even the primary purpose of Pocket? I dunno, it's still pretty fuzzy to me wtf it's for, if not that.
I've always liked Pocket, but felt queasy about its integration with Firefox.
I consider this a great move for a better bookmarking experience in Firefox as well as a better pocket service.
I consider this a great move for a better bookmarking experience in Firefox as well as a better pocket service.
Pocket's post about the acquisition, referring to the main value their product brings, says, “a platform where high-quality, thoughtful content and free speech can rise above the rest.”
Pocket used to have a feature aimed at surfacing high-quality content from the collection of things a user had already pocketed. They removed that feature. I was paying for their premium service before that change. After they removed it, I stopped the premium subscription because I wasn't sure what pocket's value to me was anymore.
Now they have a recommender that recommends things you haven't pocketed yet. But that just encourages the user to accumulate an ever larger collection of pocketed things, not surface the best things in that collection.
Ever since, I've reflexively kept saving things to pocket, hoping they would bring that feature back. But the only practical thing I have done with it is pull up something I just saved recently, because it will be near the top of the list.
Pocket's CEO also writes, “In fact, we have a few major updates up our sleeves that we are really excited to get into your hands in the coming months.” I hope they will bring that feature, or something with a similar aim, back.
Pocket used to have a feature aimed at surfacing high-quality content from the collection of things a user had already pocketed. They removed that feature. I was paying for their premium service before that change. After they removed it, I stopped the premium subscription because I wasn't sure what pocket's value to me was anymore.
Now they have a recommender that recommends things you haven't pocketed yet. But that just encourages the user to accumulate an ever larger collection of pocketed things, not surface the best things in that collection.
Ever since, I've reflexively kept saving things to pocket, hoping they would bring that feature back. But the only practical thing I have done with it is pull up something I just saved recently, because it will be near the top of the list.
Pocket's CEO also writes, “In fact, we have a few major updates up our sleeves that we are really excited to get into your hands in the coming months.” I hope they will bring that feature, or something with a similar aim, back.
"We believe that the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content is key to keeping the internet healthy by fighting against the rising tide of centralization and walled gardens" that alone is a reason to welcome this aquisition. Facebook has become for many, me included the entry point to the web much more so than the browser and I really don't like that. I can imagine Mozilla suggest content to users based in what they have saved in the past on pocket and integration with Firefox. Nice move.
This is weird. Has Mozilla acquired any startups in the past? Feels weird to me for a browser non-profit to own a web app product.
I have been working on a prototype for a competitor to Pocket and other save-for-later services with an emphasis on minimalism, privacy and ease of use.
https://slushi.es
Very early app, features are rolling out daily. My end goal is to build a recommendation engine out of user data, while keeping things anonymous.
Although social bookmarking has been done plenty times before, I think execution has been sub-par in previous solutions. My aim is to make things streamlined and fast for the user to go from 'what was that link?' to 'there it is' (sidenote: check out slushi.es opensearch, and how it behaves when there's one result (only works for signed-in users)).
A complaint I hear often from Pocket users (and other save-for-later users alike) is that they will save 100s of links without ever going back to reading them. I, too, shared the same sentiment until one day I experienced a 'what was that link again?' moment. It was rare and fleeting at the time, but since using slushi.es more and more, those moments have appeared with increasing frequency.
I believe the best save-for-later app will transform the regular web browsing individual's habits of reading an article and forgetting about it, to reading an article and remembering it later; either a day later, a month later, or perhaps years. The thing is remembering. I think a good save-for-later app works as a memory reinforcer; something that augments your ability to build and recall knowledge.
https://slushi.es
Very early app, features are rolling out daily. My end goal is to build a recommendation engine out of user data, while keeping things anonymous.
Although social bookmarking has been done plenty times before, I think execution has been sub-par in previous solutions. My aim is to make things streamlined and fast for the user to go from 'what was that link?' to 'there it is' (sidenote: check out slushi.es opensearch, and how it behaves when there's one result (only works for signed-in users)).
A complaint I hear often from Pocket users (and other save-for-later users alike) is that they will save 100s of links without ever going back to reading them. I, too, shared the same sentiment until one day I experienced a 'what was that link again?' moment. It was rare and fleeting at the time, but since using slushi.es more and more, those moments have appeared with increasing frequency.
I believe the best save-for-later app will transform the regular web browsing individual's habits of reading an article and forgetting about it, to reading an article and remembering it later; either a day later, a month later, or perhaps years. The thing is remembering. I think a good save-for-later app works as a memory reinforcer; something that augments your ability to build and recall knowledge.
I have used Pocket for the last five years or so. 99.5% of the articles I bookmark every day I never actually read. Probably should make me think why I use it at all...
The Firefox bug to open source Pocket: https://bugzil.la/open-pocket
As a former del.ici.ous engineer and user, I'm happy to see that Pocket will be in good hands for a while :)
Pocket is one of my favorite products to use. Congratulations to the team!
As I do a fair amount of offline reading, I'm a fan of pocket.
Dear Mozilla, I'd love to help out with Pocket.
As a concerned user, I even wrote this a few months ago http://constantbetasoftware.com/2016/09/02/pocket.html
How can I apply?
As a concerned user, I even wrote this a few months ago http://constantbetasoftware.com/2016/09/02/pocket.html
How can I apply?
I was shocked to read the news since afaik Mozilla had never made acquisitions like this in the past (which they mention in the post).
I'm excited though, since the reason I hadn't used Pocket in the past was because I didn't want to be part of yet another walled garden (YAWG?).
A quick look at Crunchbase shows that they'd raised $14.5M from investors. Given Mozilla's ~$300M of annual revenue, I wonder whether this leans towards an acquihire or a technology/product acquisition (definitely not a business acquisition). Difficult for me to assess the significance of 10M users for a company like Mozilla.
I'm excited though, since the reason I hadn't used Pocket in the past was because I didn't want to be part of yet another walled garden (YAWG?).
A quick look at Crunchbase shows that they'd raised $14.5M from investors. Given Mozilla's ~$300M of annual revenue, I wonder whether this leans towards an acquihire or a technology/product acquisition (definitely not a business acquisition). Difficult for me to assess the significance of 10M users for a company like Mozilla.
I'll keep saying that Mozilla should acquire Fastmail.
Now that would be a strategic acquisition.
Now that would be a strategic acquisition.
It's fairly early stage but I've been actively building an alternative to Pocket called Filltray (https://filltray.com). I found myself being overwhelmed by products like Pocket/Instapaper so wanted to build something different. A place to keep things for "short" periods of time but without the baggage of having 100s of items permanently on your never-ending reading list. A "do-later" place that may or might not come around. A couple months ago I put up a public roadmap (https://medium.com/filltray/public-product-roadmap-3964c3fa4...) and I'm continuing to work hard to produce a product which meets mine — and I think others — needs for a rethink on read-later. Please feel free to follow @filltray to keep up to date with my progress :)!
The first thing I do with a new Firefox install is remove the Pocket button, but I still welcome the prospect of seeing the Pocket service becoming open source and part of Firefox Sync. There are definitely some interesting ideas around the Context Graph, and hopefully the Pocket team will be able help move the project forward.
That's interesting. I see they plan to open source it. I might even use it after that.
Does this mark a strategy shift away from search revenue as the primary funding source? A quick crunchbase search for other aquicisions by Mozilla yeilded nothing, so I'm curious if there are other examples of them buying up for-profits.
This is an interesting development. I am curious to see how they take this integration forward. Specifically, I have questions whether it will still have a Premium component or will it be made completely open-source.
For those interested in an alternative, I am currently building a simpler bookmarking tool [1] that works pretty much exactly like Pocket or Instapaper. Email This will extract useful content from a page and send it to you via email instead of you having to download an additional app or login to another service to access your bookmarks.
[1] https://www.emailthis.me
For those interested in an alternative, I am currently building a simpler bookmarking tool [1] that works pretty much exactly like Pocket or Instapaper. Email This will extract useful content from a page and send it to you via email instead of you having to download an additional app or login to another service to access your bookmarks.
[1] https://www.emailthis.me
I think this is great. I'm weary of add-ons/extensions so only run a couple (which are from providers I trust)
I didn't really trust my saved article data to a random startup. Being under Mozilla means now I'll actually use it.
I didn't really trust my saved article data to a random startup. Being under Mozilla means now I'll actually use it.
I use Pocket differently than most people here. I never save articles to Pocket — I just use their Recommended engine to find interesting articles to read. Some of these come from sources I regularly read (NYT), but others come from obscure sources or big sources that I tend not to read for whatever reason. In a small way, it helps me get news from outside my bubble, and sometimes I'll end up reading regularly from a source I discover through Pocket.
My only complaint is that a large portion of the Recommended content is junk from Business Insider. Hopefully this will wane as Mozilla's priorities are implemented.
My only complaint is that a large portion of the Recommended content is junk from Business Insider. Hopefully this will wane as Mozilla's priorities are implemented.
Can Pocket please finally support Facebook links to non-Facebook context? And just strip the Facebook URL junk?
Otherwise, you have to click on a FB link to get the unmangled URL, thus counting against your number of free views every month.
Otherwise, you have to click on a FB link to get the unmangled URL, thus counting against your number of free views every month.
I've used Pocket in the past but when I started using Evernote I discovered that I do not need Pocket anymore. Is there any killer feature that I do not know about that Pocket offers and Evernote doesn't?
Huge fan of the Pocket App. Any guesses for how much the deal would be worth?
When they add ML clustering to one's pages, so that I stop using bookmarks, and find useful stuff automatically grouped together, plus recommendations...then perhaps I'll start using it
It sounds like a good plan, making Firefox a platform for organizing information while web browsing, research, etc.
A question: what advantages privacy-wise does Firefox have over Safari on iPad and macOS? I frequently delete all cookies on Safari and set strong privacy options. I ask because I have transitioned in the last year or so to working on my iPad and MacBook, largely letting my Linux boxes collect dust. On Linux, using Firefox was an easy decision. On iPad and MacBook, Safari is more convenient.
A question: what advantages privacy-wise does Firefox have over Safari on iPad and macOS? I frequently delete all cookies on Safari and set strong privacy options. I ask because I have transitioned in the last year or so to working on my iPad and MacBook, largely letting my Linux boxes collect dust. On Linux, using Firefox was an easy decision. On iPad and MacBook, Safari is more convenient.
I use pocket because it is automatically synced with my Kobo e-reader. One thing I wish they would offer is folders. Before I bought the kobo I stuck with instapaper just because of the cleaner interface and the option to use folders.
I get that pocket offers the option to tag, but different people have different preferences and folders would be nice.
Also a bunch of large squares doesn't seem to be the best way to organize information consisting of web blogs and pictures.
Hopefully mozilla will make some UX changes to pocket.
I get that pocket offers the option to tag, but different people have different preferences and folders would be nice.
Also a bunch of large squares doesn't seem to be the best way to organize information consisting of web blogs and pictures.
Hopefully mozilla will make some UX changes to pocket.
Mozilla doesn't have the resources to continue with Thunderbird.
I am increasingly baffled by their decisions and how they relate to the strategic plans [0] they've been producing for a while. Despite the worthy words in their plan they seem to have no sense of direction. That saddens me.
That said I'm happier having Pocket as an open source part of Mozilla/Firefox than a surprise integration of a commercial app.
[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MoFo_2020