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Mozilla Acquires Pocket

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#141

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

zobzu wrote: post #66
anexprogrammer wrote: post #48

Mozilla is growing, experimenting more, and can acquire startups. 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 Mo…

Thunderbird doesn't make money. Pocket makes money. That Mozilla is a Corp owned by a not-for-profit isn't the real thing anymore (ie not what people may believe, not that they have any obligation beside following the rule of law) - it just frees the Corp from having to report to random share holders - instead, the Corp and the Org self-select a Board of directors that they report to. At the end of the day, it's othe…

Do you have a source? Revenue and profit are completely different things, and I am curious if Pocket was making any profit. Otherwise it's losing money.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#142

Post by jacquesm »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #106
anexprogrammer wrote: post #48

Mozilla is growing, experimenting more, and can acquire startups. 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 Mo…

To be fair Thunderbird is awful. Every single time I try to find a better client I see someone suggesting "oh Thunderbird has gotten way better; give it a shot! I love it!" and every time I fall for it and it's the same slow, horrible application that I've tried again and again. I'm all for them killing it.

My 1K+ folders and millions of archived emails disagree with you. I've yet to find a client that works as well as Thunderbird with my massive email archive.

Why would it be slow? I can only type so fast and sending/receiving mail is mostly dependent on the connectivity, not on the software.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#143

Post by vertebrate »

superdaniel wrote: post #94
smacktoward wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird - the press release itself notes that this is the first such acquisition Mozilla has ever made. In their defense, it won't be the first time they've gotten into operating a service -- there's Sync, for instance. So if they see expanding FF's bookmarking abilities as a key strategic differentiator, buying an existing read-it-later service they're already familiar with could be a simpler/cheaper way of gett…

Too bad sync kind of sucks... Just yesterday I was looking at a recipe on my desktop and then I opened Firefox on my phone and tried to get at the link without emailing or messaging myself and it only showed sync'd tabs from over a week ago.

There is an option in `about:config` for that -- `services.sync.sendTabToDevice.enabled`, disabled by default. Suggest you to enable it and try it out.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#145

Post by Vinnl »

Roritharr wrote: post #122

After this, why should I donate to Mozilla? I really don't get what's the difference between donating to Mozilla and donating to Facebook. Facebook open-sources some of their stuff. Facebook buys companies to generate revenues... I guess Mozilla doesn't need help anymore.

Mozilla open sources everything, and has an open Internet as its mission? I'd trust them to do that with Pocket far more than Facebook with... Facebook.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#147

Post by greyman »

SwellJoe wrote: post #74

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…

> Allegedly, you can read things offline, but that feature never works for me.

Strange, because that is the main use case I use in Pocket. I save article there, and it stores it for offline reading, striping all formatting. It isn't a bookmark manager, it stores stuff and doesn't need internet to read it.

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#148

Post by vertebrate »

enobrev wrote: post #88
philfrasty wrote: post #21

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...

I see Pocket as the place where I put incredibly interesting things that I will never see again. I absolutely love Pocket and I have So Many interesting things in there. But I never look. I started putting things in Google Inbox, and I found that I like the reminders to read things - but I don't look at those either. I just keep pushing them back, and eventually, during a less busy week, move them over to Pocket, whe…

You are not alone, but I just use bookmarks for that. Is using Pocket any different from that, e.g. does it save pages internally so if the original site goes down the page will still be available in Pocket?

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#149

Post by greyman »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #107
SwellJoe wrote: post #74

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…

It isn't all that obvious how the offline function works - which is a shame. I've been caught without offline availability for some articles I saved. The main thing with the work-around is that you need to start Pocket on your phone while you have a data connection so that the articles are on the phone. There may be an option to automatically download the articles, but I've never found it. After the one-time data con…

> The main thing with the work-around is that you need to start Pocket on your phone while you have a data connection so that the articles are on the phone.

Hmm, I always found this to be obvious, and not a work-around. How else would they entered the phone?

Re: Mozilla Acquires Pocket

#150

Post by gnicholas »

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.

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