End of Mozilla's Pocket app attracts prospective buyers

Two well-known figures from the tech industry have expressed interest in buying the bookmark app Pocket, which operator Mozilla plans to shut down soon. Digg founder Kevin Rose threw his hat into the ring on X and Tony Stubbleine, CEO of the publishing platform Medium, has apparently been trying to get into talks with Mozilla since 2023 – but has so far been ignored by the foundation, according to his own statements.

It was announced this week that the bookmark service Pocket, which is operated by the Mozilla Foundation, is on the brink of collapse. According to the foundation, it will be over in just a few weeks. Anyone who wants to save their bookmarks must act before they are lost.

Interest in the Pocket app

The way people use the Internet has changed, and Mozilla is now using the funds for projects that are better suited to current surfing habits and online needs, according to the official explanation.

However, the market of Internet users who still rely on apps such as Pocket for their surfing habits still seems attractive to some. For example, for Kevin Rose, founder of the link aggregator Digg. When Mozilla announced the end of Pocket, Rose promptly responded with a post on X in which he highlighted Mozilla's presence there. And announced that he was "happy to take over Pocket" and would continue to support the app for many years to come.

No comments

The background to this post is unclear, but the news portal Techcrunch is currently treating it as an expression of interest. Digg or Mozilla have not yet commented on the Rose statements. However, Digg's own concept would certainly benefit from a Pocket takeover, as it dates back to a time long before the Pocket era.

Digg started in 2004 as a news aggregator that worked with social bookmarks. After it had largely disappeared from the scene, co-founder Kevin Rose bought the platform back together with Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, and now wants to relaunch it. It is conceivable that Pocket could be integrated into Digg so that saved pages can be played there again.

One person who has been interested in buying Pocket for some time is the CEO of Medium, Tony Stubbleine. According to his statements, he tried to talk to Mozilla about buying Pocket back in 2023, but has not heard anything from Mozilla since then. He is surprised by the end that has now been announced: "I don't know exactly what Mozilla is doing here, but it's kind of annoying," he told Techcrunch. Pocket's software could be easily replicated –, but parts of the associated infrastructure and connections to the web would be difficult to replace. "I'm sure someone would have taken it over."

(nen)