Mozilla Buys Bookmarking App Pocket

RECENTLY REBRANDED internet not-for-profit Mozilla has snapped up personal interweb scrapbook Pocket to bolster its portfolio.

Pocket is a platform that lets you store articles and other content for reading it later. With only 10 million monthly users, it’s not exactly a force to be reckoned with, at least in the scale of mobile era standards today, especially considering that Pocket is an advertising-backed enterprise.

Starting as a Firefox extension called “Read It Later”, the rechristened Pocket has blossomed into a multi-million dollar operation with 10 million active users per month, many with premium accounts.

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

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

Pocket provides a platform to users through which they can save, share, and consume the content worthy of their time and attention.

The deal represents Mozilla’s first ever strategic acquisition, and the company says it will help grow its mobile presence.

As we mentioned, the read-it-later service will continue to operate independently, with the entire team behind Pocket remaining the same and continuing to work in its existing office.

The Ceo of Pocket, Nate Weiner, said that Mozilla has extraordinary resources which will help Pocket become a better product. The values that both Mozilla and Pocket have and continue to hold, will also be present. The startup said that they have really enjoyed collaborating with the open-source software community over the past year, and that they look forward to working more closely with the San Francisco company.

Why sell now?”How does Mozilla fit into this equation?”

Back in July, Firefox’s VP of Product, Nick Nguyen, wrote a Medium post about a bold project they were building: a recommender system for the web. Already built into Firefox, Pocket is also available as an app for Android and Apple iOS devices and as a web-based service.

According to Mozilla’s blog post, thoughts about this acquisition began a year ago when Pocket was integrated within the browser.