Tag: mozilla

  • Digg founder Kevin Rose affords to purchase Pocket from Mozilla

    Digg, the Web 2.0-era hyperlink aggregator that’s now being given a second chance at life, is open to purchasing Mozilla’s read-it-later app, Pocket.

    On Thursday, Mozilla announced it would shut down Pocket on July 8, saying that the best way folks use the online has developed, and it wanted to concentrate on new areas of improvement. Shortly after, Kevin Rose, Digg’s authentic proprietor, now co-founder of the brand new Digg alongside Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, posted on X that his firm could be interested by buying Pocket from Mozilla.

    Tagging each Mozilla and Pocket on the submit, Rose wrote, “we love Pocket at @Digg, completely satisfied to take it over and proceed to help your customers for years to come back!” The submit moreover tagged Betaworks founding associate Peter Rojas, beforehand the founding father of Gizmodo and , now SVP New Merchandise at Mozilla.

    Neither Digg nor Mozilla has but to reply to a request for touch upon the information. Nonetheless, the deal may very well be fascinating if it went by way of, as Digg might leverage Pocket’s present person base to gas curiosity in its relaunch. Digg might doubtlessly even combine Pocket’s studying listing with Digg, making it simpler for customers to seek out and share participating content material on to the information aggregator. This might present an preliminary pipeline for feeding information and articles into Digg whereas it labored to develop its person base.

    Digg’s comeback has attracted consideration, because it pairs Digg’s authentic founder, Rose, with Ohanian, who helped create the longtime Digg competitor, Reddit, now an web large of its personal. Digg not too long ago introduced it has also brought on Christian Selig, the founding father of the third-party Reddit app Apollo, as an adviser. Selig’s Apollo app had been probably the greatest methods to work together with Reddit, however the firm reduce off the app’s entry by raising its API pricing to the purpose that it will have put Selig out of enterprise.

    Digg isn’t the one one to have gone after Pocket. Medium CEO Tony Stubbleine says he additionally explored shopping for Pocket in 2023, however by no means heard from Mozilla earlier than it introduced it was shutting the app down.

    “Undecided what Mozilla is doing, however it’s type of infuriating,” Stubbleine instructed TechCrunch. “The Pocket software program is straightforward to rebuild, however a few of the infrastructure and integrations across the net could be laborious to exchange. So I’m certain that somebody would have taken it on.”

    Up to date after publication with remark from Stubbleine.

  • Mozilla is shutting down read-it-later app Pocket

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    Mozilla announced on Thursday that it’s shutting down Pocket, a read-it-later app it acquired in 2017, on July 8. The corporate can be shutting down Fakespot, its browser extension that helps customers establish unreliable evaluations.

    “Pocket has helped tens of millions save articles and uncover tales value studying,” Mozilla mentioned in a weblog publish. “However the way in which folks use the net has advanced, so we’re channeling our sources into tasks that higher match their looking habits and on-line wants.”

    Customers will be capable of proceed utilizing the app and browser extensions for Pocket till July 8. After that date, Pocket will transfer into export-only mode. Customers have till October 8 to export saved articles, together with gadgets of their checklist, archive, favorites, notes, and highlights.

    Whereas Mozilla didn’t present a particular purpose for shutting down the service, the corporate says it’s going to proceed to spend money on serving to folks uncover and “entry prime quality net content material.” Mozilla says it’s going to do that by its New Tab expertise, e-mail e-newsletter, and extra. The New Tab expertise options shortcuts to your most visited websites, your not too long ago visited pages, and your bookmarks.

    As for Fakespot, Mozilla says it’s shutting down the service as a result of “whereas the thought resonated, it didn’t match a mannequin we might maintain.”

    Though it’s unclear what number of customers Pocket had, the service was capable of domesticate a loyal userbase through the years. Customers have taken to social media to voice their displeasure with the information.

    “This shift permits us to form the subsequent period of the web — with instruments like vertical tabs, sensible search and extra AI-powered options on the way in which,” Mozilla says. “We’ll proceed to construct a browser that works more durable for you: extra private, extra highly effective and nonetheless proudly impartial.”