Mozilla Buys Pocket: Ask your questions here!

Mozillians
#1

Earlier today, Chris Beard (Mozilla Corporation CEO) made an exciting announcement: Mozilla has acquired Read It Later, Inc. the developers of Pocket.

“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

You can read more about this in the public press release:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/02/27/mozilla-acquires-pocket/

This post is meant for your questions and reactions!

6 Likes
#2

What does this mean in terms of advertisement they have on their website as well as their “featured content” (or whatever it’s called)? Will we keep that? Does this mean we will consider advertisement in other products as well?

3 Likes
#3

I came here just to ask the same question. I wonder if mozilla wants to get into the user data business.

2 Likes
#4

It seems pretty clear Mozilla just created a new revenue stream and is doubling down on advertising.

#5

We translated the announcement for the French community last night https://blog.mozfr.org/post/2017/02/Mozilla-se-met-Pocket-dans-la-poche

1 Like
#6

What about current Mozilla/Pocket communities? Does Pocket have any volunteers or insiders? How they will fit into Mozilla space? Does Pocket have any opportunities for being involved in things like design, localization, support, writing, …?

#7

Fantastic. Merci Beaucoup!

#8

Some answers from the Business Development team! (Thanks to Kunal, Denelle and Susan)

Keep the questions and thoughts coming…

Pocket will continue to pursue a freemium business model that includes content sponsored by publishers alongside premium subscription services.

We do see a distinction between sponsored content and traditional advertising – the former is much more focused on delivering value to the user along with generating revenue.

It’s hard to make any definite commitments for the future, but there are no current plans or considerations for bringing sponsored content or traditional advertising into Firefox or new Firefox mobile experiences.

Pocket has its own active community of users and a team of employees focused on supporting this user community. This is likely to continue a pretty distinct community within the big Mozilla tent, just as the Rust or WebVR communities are quite distinct from one another.

We haven’t begun exploring the opportunities for connecting our core communities or active contributors to Pocket. Thanks for raising this: We’ll be sure to include it as a topic of conversation with the Pocket team in the months ahead. If you have ideas this would be much appreciated.

1 Like
#9

Hi @george.

For me it would be good start to have a possibility to check, if there is any local community in Czech. Something like https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Teams:cs for localization would be definitely enough, just to get in touch and figure how the things are. As we localize the Pocket add-on, if any deeper integration either in Firefox or Mozilla propagation is planned, it would be good to at least know, how to make Pocket speak Czech. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#10

Can you elaborate on the open sourcing of the code base? Is there a timeline? What products will be open sourced?

2 Likes
#11

What’s the current state of the Pocket web and various other apps in Czech today?

#12

There aren’t details on the plan right now. I’ll be sure to bring back an update when it’s available.

1 Like
#13

The web itself is not localized and I am not aware of any alternative application for Pocket, that is. Only the Firefox system add-on.

#15

Please: should bugs affecting the GUI (not content) of tiles within the Recommended by Pocket section of new tabs be made in Bugzilla?

Bugs aside, I have a question on usage …

TIA

#16

Yes, the newtab page is part of Firefox, you can file a bug here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Activity%20Streams:%20Newtab

1 Like
#17

How come Mozilla bought its own product?
Fraudulent transaction?
And how to disable this pocket icon from adresbar of FF?
Thats one of many reasons I dont use FF on any of my personal devices…

#18

What’s stopping factor for Mozilla to open source Pocket?

#19

Hi @developer11 .

Mozilla acquired Pocket in February 2017 (see the beginning of this thread). Before it was a self-owned company.

Disabling Pocket is really easy. If you don’t want to use it, just remove it from the address bar as described in this support article, and it will get deactivated.

If you need any help with Firefox or any Mozilla product in the future, feel free to reach us through the Support Mozilla server, which offers many help articles as well as dedicated support forums.

#20

Hi @r_TlfPuogHW2i9hdoQY1tGww .

There are already some repositories open on GitHub (see https://github.com/pocket). However I do not know, what are the ultimate plans and whether all parts of the Pocket software have dates decided to be published, only that Pocket support is getting ready to be added to SUMO (support.mozilla.org).

@george you’ve answered a similar question back in 2017. Do you know, what’s the progress so far and when we can expect more Pocket software to be opened?

1 Like
#21

Done. Thanks for this :slight_smile: