Mozilla Corp acquires Pocket

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 28, 2017
Firefox
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21

Mozilla Corporation announced the acquisition of Read it Later, Inc, the creators of the "save for later" service Pocket.

Pocket will become a new product in Mozilla's product line alongside the Firefox web browser, and Pocket's core development team will join Mozilla as well.

Mozilla's relationship with Pocket dates back some time. The makers of the Firefox web browser integrated Pocket natively in the browser some time ago. Mozilla was criticized for the move by part of the browser's user base. Some did not understand why Pocket needed to be integrated into Firefox as Pocket was available as a browser extension already.

Others did not like the integration because it would blow up the browser even more. Others questioned Mozilla's motive for the integration.

Pocket users liked the integration for the most part obviously. It is unclear up to today if the integration fueled the growth of Pocket, and by how much.

It was revealed however some time later that Mozilla did have a revenue share agreement with Pocket.

Pocket is now available as a system add-on in Firefox. System add-ons are distributed by Mozilla with the Firefox web browser. It is still possible to disable Pocket in Firefox though.

Mozilla's acquisition of Pocket

Mozilla's blog post published on the official Mozilla blog focuses on content discovery, and the Context Graph initiative.

Activity Stream is one of the products that came out of Context Graph. It is a redesign of the Firefox New Tab Page and about:home page that is scheduled to launch in Firefox 56.

According to Mozilla, Pocket's focus will be "promoting the discovery and accessibility of high quality web content".

It seems likely that Mozilla plans to use Pocket's technology to improve the content discovery features of the Firefox web browser.

One of the appeals of Pocket is that users have saved more than 3 billion pieces of content so far, a treasure trove for an organization who tries to introduce content discovery in the web browser. Pocket will join Mozilla's Open Source project.

The announcement by Nate Weiner, CEO of Pocket, confirms the deal. According to the post, Pocket benefits from the acquisition in several ways; from Mozilla's resources, global scale, and options to increase the number of Pocket users further.

What about Pocket Premium? The paid service was not mentioned by Mozilla nor Pocket, and it appears as if it will still be offered in the same way just like before.

Now You: What is your take on the deal?

Summary
Mozilla Corp acquires Pocket
Article Name
Mozilla Corp acquires Pocket
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Mozilla Corporation announced the acquisition of Read it Later, Inc, the creators of the "save for later" service Pocket.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. TelV said on March 1, 2017 at 7:38 pm
    Reply

    As I understand it Pocket is a means of saving links, video clips and the like for viewing at a later date. But will Pocket retain the data over time, or does it erase it after say 100 days?

    If it retains it forever will there be a method of identifying it at a later date using some sort of search tool? How will that work? Will the user be able to use keywords to search for something even though in the case of a video clip, the title may not include the term used to search for it.

    I’m thinking now in terms of bookmarks. I often change the data in the “Name” field to reflect something I might use to search for it at a later date since I know for a fact that I won’t be able to remember a site saved as a bookmark which I viewed six months ago using the default data it included.

    Personally, I doubt if I’ll use it. When it was available before I dragged it into the Customize field since I saw no use for it at all and didn’t want it cluttering up the toolbar.

  2. Sebas said on March 1, 2017 at 2:44 pm
    Reply

    Mozilla and its Mozlims are everyday preaching Mozilla is the poor little match girl and have no money and we should give them huge money because theyre the good guys worlds saviors and we’re the ungrateful infidels. But they buy another corporation.
    And Mozilla is SOOO Open and transparent lover that no disclose info about the waste.

    They could give that money to the pocket open alternative (eg wallabag), but they didnt.

  3. Ray said on February 28, 2017 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    I have no interest in article curation. Opera already has this feature and I disable it.

    IMO, this is a waste of resources going to an unneeded feature.

  4. Tony said on February 28, 2017 at 8:12 pm
    Reply

    Very questionable.

    First, Mozilla integrates Pocket into Firefox, which likely greatly expanded Pocket’s userbase, thus increasing Pocket’s value.

    Then Mozilla purchases Pocket for an inflated price.

    1. Fx0 said on February 28, 2017 at 8:31 pm
      Reply

      You know the price? Please tell us!

  5. Maou said on February 28, 2017 at 3:13 pm
    Reply

    So, they do have money to spare, the extensions killing spree has nothing to do with money then?
    I’ll have to keep removing Pocket every now and again “forever”, or until I drop Firefox… sigh.

    1. foolishgrunt said on February 28, 2017 at 7:07 pm
      Reply

      Are you suggesting that Mozilla is embracing WebExtensions because of money? Well, I guess every business decision comes back to money eventually, but I think you’ve missed the point.

    2. Fx0 said on February 28, 2017 at 6:50 pm
      Reply

      I don’t get your point.

      1. Fx0 said on March 1, 2017 at 8:03 am
        Reply

        @Chris: Yeah, sure thing. There are only a few comments from me on ghacks and not one troll comment. And there can’t be any doubt that the comment from FlippyBit is a troll comment. No one can be so stupid to believe that that’s not a troll comment. But well, it’s a known fact in the blogosphere that everyone not trolling against Mozilla is the enemy, so no surprise.

      2. Chris said on March 1, 2017 at 6:33 am
        Reply

        The hypocrisy of Fx0 calling others a troll when he is the #1 troll is quite notable.

        It’s good to have opposing viewpoints, but Fx0 has obviously taken his fanboydom into troll territory,

      3. Fx0 said on February 28, 2017 at 8:04 pm
        Reply

        wow. please go away and troll on another website, ghacks doesn’t need that.

      4. FlippyBit said on February 28, 2017 at 7:18 pm
        Reply

        Of course they have money to spare — the more privacy invasive “features” they integrate the more money they get from their spyvertising. Sigh….
        At the end of the day everything has to do with money.
        Drop firefox to what exactly? The more privacy friendly chrome?

      5. FlippyBit said on February 28, 2017 at 7:15 pm
        Reply

        Of course they have money to spare — the more privacy invasive “features” they integrate the more money they get from their spyvertising. Sigh….
        At the end of the day everything has to do with money.
        Drop firefox to what exactly? The more privacy friendly chrome?

  6. Peter said on February 28, 2017 at 3:12 pm
    Reply

    lol they bought Pocket. Wait until Risitas hears about this..

  7. Tom Hawack said on February 28, 2017 at 2:41 pm
    Reply

    Nice to see that a non-profit organization has the cash available to proceed to acquisitions. What a pity the chosen one be Pocket :)

  8. John C. said on February 28, 2017 at 1:42 pm
    Reply

    Martin, your article here: https://www.ghacks.net/2015/12/05/mozilla-has-a-revenue-share-agreement-with-pocket/
    shows me that Mozilla can no longer be trusted. When they got in bed with Google, that was a huge blow to their credibility, but this further deceit on their part pushes me further and further into either using an older version of Firefox or else another browser entirely.

  9. Anonymous said on February 28, 2017 at 11:22 am
    Reply

    “Pocket’s core team and technology will also accelerate Mozilla’s broader Context Graph initiative.”

    “also” = mostly. For the Firefox’s aficionados saying the controversial Context Graph will probably not implemented, what is clear now is Mozilla Corp is working hard on it.

  10. Victor said on February 28, 2017 at 10:47 am
    Reply

    Well, Mozilla isn’t the worst company to make this purchase. At least, I see no indications that they’ll shut Pocket down or make it an exclusive for the Firefox users. Hope that everything will stay the same because migration from Pocket would be painful (gave Instapaper several tries… nope).

  11. Alex said on February 28, 2017 at 9:03 am
    Reply

    It casts a lots of doubts to me. I’d like to know if it will be open sourced on the future or what are the plans. If it’s open sourced it will be an improvement, but otherway I think is a wrong step

    1. Sören Hentzschel said on February 28, 2017 at 10:40 am
      Reply

      Yes, Pocket will be open source in the future. There is already a tracking bug on Mozilla’s bugtracker for that (#1343006).

    2. SirFritz said on February 28, 2017 at 10:34 am
      Reply

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