Digg founder Kevin Rose has publicly offered to acquire Pocket from Mozilla, just one day after Mozilla announced that it would shut down the popular read-it-later app on July 8. Mozilla attributed the closure to changes in how users engage with web content, explaining that it needs to direct its resources toward different priorities.
Rose expressed his interest in a post on social media, tagging both Mozilla and Pocket, and emphasizing Digg’s enthusiasm for continuing to support Pocket’s loyal user base into the future. His message also included a mention to Betaworks founding partner Peter Rojas, who previously founded Gizmodo and Engadget.
Neither Mozilla nor Digg have as yet commented publicly beyond Rose’s initial statement. However, industry observers suggest that integrating Pocket into Digg could be a strategic move that helps relaunch and grow the Digg platform. Pocket’s extensive existing audience offers Digg a ready-made pool of engaged readers, potentially allowing Digg to smoothly integrate and enhance its service by providing improved content discovery and sharing capabilities.
Kevin Rose recently reclaimed ownership of Digg alongside Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, signaling a concerted effort to revive the once-pioneering Web 2.0 link aggregator. Adding momentum to this comeback, Digg announced earlier this month the appointment of Christian Selig, creator of the Apollo app, a formerly popular third-party Reddit client, as an advisor. Apollo was discontinued after Reddit significantly increased its API fees, effectively forcing third-party developers out of operation.
If Digg succeeds in acquiring Pocket, the two platforms could create powerful synergies, marking a meaningful step forward in Rose’s ambitious vision to reshape and reinvigorate Digg.
