Mozilla Acquires Pocket

[ttto]

We are excited to announce that the Mozilla Corporation has completed the acquisition of Read It Later, Inc. the developers of Pocket.

Mozilla is growing, experimenting more, and doubling down on our mission to keep the internet healthy, as a global public resource that’s open and accessible to all. As our first strategic acquisition, Pocket contributes to our strategy by growing our mobile presence and providing people everywhere with powerful tools to discover and access high quality web content, on their terms, independent of platform or content silo.

Pocket will join Mozilla’s product portfolio as a new product line alongside the Firefox web browsers with a focus on promoting the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content. Pocket’s core team and technology will also accelerate Mozilla’s broader Context Graph initiative.

“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. Pocket provides people with the tools they need to engage with and share content on their own terms, independent of hardware platform or content silo, for a safer, more empowered and independent online experience.” – Chris Beard, Mozilla CEO

Pocket brings to Mozilla a successful human-powered content recommendation system with 10 million unique monthly active users on iOS, Android and the Web, and with more than 3 billion pieces of content saved to date.

In working closely with Pocket over the last year around the integration within Firefox, we developed a shared vision and belief in the opportunity to do more together that has led to Pocket joining Mozilla today.

“We’ve really enjoyed partnering with Mozilla over the past year. We look forward to working more closely together to support the ongoing growth of Pocket and to create great new products that people love in support of our shared mission.” – Nate Weiner, Pocket CEO

As a result of this strategic acquisition, Pocket will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Corporation and will become part of the Mozilla open source project.

 

[Cohen]

This is great news for Mozilla and Pocket. With Pocket being owned by Mozilla, they're profits will go towards Mozilla's mission for a better internet rather than making decisions based on their profit-motivated shareholders.

I wonder if the premium tier will continue to exist once it has been open-sourced.

 

[Predrag Radjenovic]

Well, good for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't necessarily mean good for the users, as some of the decisions made by Mozilla in recent years were really... not that good, to put it mildly. Starting from Chrome release numbering and tempo, to the most recent of completely disabling XUL extensions until the end of 2017. Even if I still use Firefox, my patience is nearly at the end... I think we don't need another Chrome clone, one Chrome is quite enough.

 

[kev216]

Since Pocket was already integrated in firefox as a default addon, I can understand this decision. If this aqcuisition was really needed, that's another question. My view on this is that this is a bit a waste of money and I don't understand their strategy anymore. It's like a collection of random decisions being made, but they are not connected to each other in any sense. In the past two years, they got rid of thunderbird and stopped the development of firefox OS to focus more on the browser. But what we actually got in return is a browser where they actually remove good parts of the browser instead of innovating in the market. Release after release it's only small things or things like this they present. I know they are working on bigger things to their engine, but it's evolving so slow they only get more behind compared to the competition. It looks like Mozilla is slowly getting off the path of an open web and choose for the money. Pocket is a not needed addition to the browser, and if users want to use it, you can install the addon. But I don't understand why they add a 3rth party addon by default. Same with the Clicqz expriment they are doing. If they want a privacy first browser, develop your own things instead of adding addons from others into your browser by default. The open aspect and the whole point of what firefox stands for slowly fades away with these steps they set. They should invest time and money in more urgent things like their electrolysis and servo project and make mozilla great again like in the early days. So stop copying, stop adding bloat to the browser but bring back the innovation again and make firefox again to what it was supposed to be Mozilla!

 

[Handsome Recluse]

Well. If everyone's copying Chrome, Chrome must've done something really good. Besides, if what Firefox was was so good, why aren't anyone doing it and Mozilla shying away from it? The things they're adding's benefit should be immediate and obvious a la current Opera with their tracking list and whatever to try to move users into them instead of slowly dying. It's ultimately a risk they're taking probably because it's the only choice they have. Mozilla is trying to catch up in technology but they clearly can't because of the lack of manpower which needs money not open web. Mozilla's experience really seem like an experiment to show that some things simply doesn't scale and ideology =/= reality. My opinion, just let them be and adapt if I have to. Many of the supposed convenience can be replaced entirely anyway or just simply suck. I always come back to the same conclusions on e.g. tab placements for my productivity. Some addons like Noscript, ublock and Adguard will still survive anyway.

 

[RejZoR]

Not sure. I've used Pocket at one point, but stopped because it was just a bit clumsy. What I hope is that they'll learn something from Pocket regarding synchronization of data. They really need to fix Firefox Sync feature because this crap keeps breaking itself, especially with syncing of add-ons. I don't get it how they can't make this part work correctly without exceptions.

 

[Predrag Radjenovic]

Well. If everyone's copying Chrome, Chrome must've done something really good. Besides, if what Firefox was was so good, why aren't anyone doing it and Mozilla shying away from it?

I see you were not around the browser market before Chrome came to be. EDIT: No offence mentioned, sorry if I'm wrong, it's just the impression I'm getting.

First and foremost, Chrome/Google has an excellent marketing campaign which costs a lot of money, while Mozilla is a non-profit. Chrome's target audience were never advanced users and tinkerers, but one-click setup users, and it never did get to those (advanced) users completely. Don't get me wrong, Chrome sure did a couple of things good, but lets be honest - customization is not one of them. On the other hand, Firefox never brought itself up to Chrome regarding speed, but customization possibilities were unmatched, and it was always it's strength. For Mozilla to switch it's focus to WebExtensions completely, is looking away from the things it was the best at, and going towards the things it never was good at.

XUL extensions allowed customization options other browsers could only dream of, and they were the core Firefox strength. THIS is spitting in developers face, and turning their back to everything that Firefox stood for. [WebExtensions] "They’re easier to develop, and you won’t have to learn about Firefox internals to get up and running." I'm sorry, but this sentence alone is proof that something's not right in the state of Mozilla. Firefox is open source. End. Full-stop. If you don't know your way around it, you don't develop addons. Addons for Chrome, with few exceptions, do not deserve to be called addons. Not because Chrome is not open source (it is), but because of the API it uses.

You mentioned Opera. The pattern developing around Opera opera (pun intended) back around Presto version was strangely similar to what we see is manifesting around Firefox now, or soon to be.

 

[Handsome Recluse]

Maybe what they stood for simply sucks. Philosophy is different from science after all. Comparative advantages are advantages but we're in the era of big data. Niche is niche. I wouldn't want to focus on niche home users. Ubuntu basically kickstarted Linux after all even though their ideals aren't the same and Redhat's focus is enterprise. The others are basically no names and probably only popular among hobbyists. Without enterprise/average users, Linux would probably not be known. It's still subject to economics after all. Mozilla wanted to take that risk and it's too late to turn back because they've already lose trust so they can only try to gain new trust.

 

[brod56]

I see you were not around the browser market before Chrome came to be. EDIT: No offence mentioned, sorry if I'm wrong, it's just the impression I'm getting.

First and foremost, Chrome/Google has an excellent marketing campaign which costs a lot of money, while Mozilla is a non-profit. Chrome's target audience were never advanced users and tinkerers, but one-click setup users, and it never did get to those (advanced) users completely. Don't get me wrong, Chrome sure did a couple of things good, but lets be honest - customization is not one of them. On the other hand, Firefox never brought itself up to Chrome regarding speed, but customization possibilities were unmatched, and it was always it's strength. For Mozilla to switch it's focus to WebExtensions completely, is looking away from the things it was the best at, and going towards the things it never was good at.

XUL extensions allowed customization options other browsers could only dream of, and they were the core Firefox strength. THIS is spitting in developers face, and turning their back to everything that Firefox stood for. [WebExtensions] "They’re easier to develop, and you won’t have to learn about Firefox internals to get up and running." I'm sorry, but this sentence alone is proof that something's not right in the state of Mozilla. Firefox is open source. End. Full-stop. If you don't know your way around it, you don't develop addons. Addons for Chrome, with few exceptions, do not deserve to be called addons. Not because Chrome is not open source (it is), but because of the API it uses.

You mentioned Opera. The pattern developing around Opera opera (pun intended) back around Presto version was strangely similar to what we see is manifesting around Firefox now, or soon to be.

I agree. Firefox new aproaches to Chrome related to update numbering are just ridiculous.
The fall of XUL extensions is the biggest shame though, they are the ones that currently make Firefox more customizable and user-adaptable than Chrome.
Unfortunately I will probably end my 6+ years of Firefox by this November, when FF 57 comes out.

 

[Predrag Radjenovic]

Mozilla wanted to take that risk and it's too late to turn back because they've already lose trust so they can only try to gain new trust.

This I can agree with, and good luck with that. Why? That market is already taken by Chrome itself, Opera (another Chrome clone now), and Vivaldi more and more. What is that punchline that will make you or me come back to it? Customization? Not anymore. Speed? Chrome again. Cloud? Dare I say - Maxthon. Security? Not a chance. It was customization that made Firefox and Mozilla THE names on the market and nothing else.

The thing that baffles me and a lot of people, is that they actually don't have to turn away from their core strength - Customization - in order to achieve greater market share. Dismantling the add-on system just because Mozilla doesn't like the maintenance burden all of a sudden? No, something else is behind all this, and has been for years now.

 

[antreas]

Firefox rock! Keep up! you are the best!

 

[RejZoR]

When Mozilla kills XUL, I won't see any point in sticking with Firefox. Chrome and Opera addons are garbage. They are even so bad they CONSTANTLY conflict with each other (uBlock and Ghostery for example just break eachother) where in Firefox, everything simply works. And quality and integration is so much better as well.

 

[antreas]

When Mozilla kills XUL, I won't see any point in sticking with Firefox. Chrome and Opera addons are garbage. They are even so bad they CONSTANTLY conflict with each other (uBlock and Ghostery for example just break eachother) where in Firefox, everything simply works. And quality and integration is so much better as well.

Why everybody hates XUL?

 

[Handsome Recluse]

When Mozilla kills XUL, I won't see any point in sticking with Firefox. Chrome and Opera addons are garbage. They are even so bad they CONSTANTLY conflict with each other (uBlock and Ghostery for example just break eachother) where in Firefox, everything simply works. And quality and integration is so much better as well.

Is Chrome's reporting on redirect intersections really considered conflict. uBlock and Ghostery overlap regardless in Firefox.

 

[RejZoR]

Yes, yes it is. Because it keeps on bitching about it and showing errors. It's annoying if you're constantly getting a pointles exclamation sign on interface. Imagine if your car always fired up bunch of lights on the dash when turning left, telling you that you're going left.

 

[Vipersd]

Pointless add-on and integration, how many users use Pocket at all, same as discarded Hello. Mozilla obviously doesn't understand that users don't need useless integrated add-ons. One by one older user is abandoning Firefox because they don't want Firefox to be another Chrome clone.

 

[David-Cyb]

Since Pocket was already integrated in firefox as a default addon, I can understand this decision. If this aqcuisition was really needed, that's another question. My view on this is that this is a bit a waste of money and I don't understand their strategy anymore. It's like a collection of random decisions being made, but they are not connected to each other in any sense.

@kev216 completely agree mate. I was scratching my head on this. It just appears to be a bunch of bureaucrats making poor decisions and wasting valuable money. Everything is being done half heart. I suppose since they keep getting funding money from the likes of Google, Yahoo, etc. they really aren't interested in protecting user privacy and leading innovations. It's all just lip service.