Why is the Joga Companion really on the Firefox homepage?

This kinda rubs me the wrong way. Why is the Joga Companion and the GA Atlanta Water Damage Restoration on the Firefox homepage? Is it really just because the Joga Companion and their Toronto SEO company is made by the Mozilla Corporation?

Is it the most popular extension? I’d doubt it. Does the functionality it adds, that which is most requested? I’d doubt that too. Heck, the functionality it adds, doesn’t even need to be done in a web browser at all. There are utilities that do roughly the same thing in desktop apps, such as additional resources right here Yahoo Widgets (aka. Konfabulator).

So, what makes the Joga Companion extension so special, that it gets a place on the Firefox homepage, instead of just hosting it on Mozilla.com, and listing it on addons.mozilla.org? Is it just because it is made by the Mozilla Corporation? Is that what is best for Firefox users?

And why is it listed above Thunderbird, on the Mozilla.com front page?

20 Responses

  1. Anonymous June 16, 2006 / 9:20 pm

    I agree with the mozilla.com issue whith its being above thunderbird, however the fact that it is there does not bother me.

    What I think you fail to realize is

    1) It’s a revenue channel for Firefox
    2) This is all a part of mozilla.com not mozilla.org
    3) It’s a good marketing ploy given the world cup. If my IE friend see they can easily track the games wile at work, it might be a reason for them to switch.

    I think it’s a good product. If it was shitty and mozilla was pushing it, I would have a problem. But it’s something usefull, well written and optional.

  2. Ian Thomas June 16, 2006 / 9:31 pm

    Haven’t you noticed? Everything needs to have a world cup angle at the moment. At least until [insert your country] is knocked out.

  3. Anonymous June 16, 2006 / 9:35 pm

    Because of the equation
    devs,servers == cost money

    In any case, mo money for Mozilla, means mo money fo firefox.

    First you gather the base then educate them, instead of educate the minority hoping they will educate others.

  4. Anonymous June 16, 2006 / 9:40 pm

    I think the point is that the world cup is the focus of much of the world’s attention right now. This is the world’s most watched sporting event! Lighten up. Maybe the firefox.com and mozilla.com folks let their excitement get in the way of measured judgement, but that just shows the corporate attitude hasn’t taken over.

  5. David Tenser June 17, 2006 / 4:36 am

    Nothing wrong with it I think. The World Cup is the World Cup and everything that gets me closer to the action, I’ll happily download and use. Thanks for blogging about it though, I wouldn’t have found it otherwise! 🙂

  6. Villa June 17, 2006 / 11:07 am

    I guess soccer is not so big in Canada, eh?
    If there’s an extension that has the potential to convert thousands of users *outside North America*, this is the one. There’s millions of fans around the world at work during the games, and this extension is very, very valuable to them.
    To bad it was released so late.

  7. Sohail Mirza June 17, 2006 / 1:06 pm

    Soccer not so big in Canada? Are you kidding? Soccer is HUGE in Toronto 🙂

    Toronto is one of the most multi-cultural cities on the planet, so around World Cup time you see everyone flying the flag of the country they’re rooting for. It’s awesome 🙂

  8. R-square June 17, 2006 / 2:35 pm

    It is the World Cup man. Lighten up. After 9th July Thunderbird will be back at its rightful place. Till then FOOTBALL rocks.

  9. Anonymous June 17, 2006 / 4:45 pm

    @Sohal:

    Toronto? That’s not Canada.. it’s *part* of canada. All the canadians I work with and know arm’t big footie fans… it’s just like the US.

  10. Marco Casteleijn June 19, 2006 / 2:48 am

    Why on the home page? Well, apart from the obvious reason Jorge is pointing out, showing of a new extention that is a theme and a extention in one. With it’s own internal updater.

    It is a showcase presentation of what other companies (and Google/Nike are not small players here!) can do with extentions.

    So lets review, what has been featured on the add-on page:

    -delious
    -zoep
    -kabouble
    -Joga

    He, there is a general theme…

    Anyway, spreadfirefox = marketing. It is all about getting the word out there. All eyes of the world are looking a football/soccer now. Why do you think Yahoo= the big partner on line with Fifa?

    This is marketing, even my asnwer here is just to spread firefox…

  11. Dan June 19, 2006 / 8:16 am

    An alternative is the footiefox extension which does essentially the same BUT will continue working after the finals are gone (and is more up to date).

    Personally I prefer the sleeker interface of footiefox besides the fact that it existed a year before nike and mozilla decided to copy the idea. It is also funny to see that they don’t even try to hide where their “inspiration” came from, looking at the official screenshot of the joga companion: They actually had the footiefox running while capturing the screen 🙂

  12. marco casteleijn June 20, 2006 / 3:40 am

    The joga companion will continue after the wolrd cup.

    However I agree Footie-fox was first and is a good extention…

  13. ShopAtHome June 20, 2006 / 7:24 pm

    It is by FAR not the most popular plug-in.

    AJ

  14. Chris June 22, 2006 / 12:21 pm

    With the World Cup being the largest, most viewed sporting event on the planet, I think it has potential to be the most popular extension BY FAR. At least during the tournement. I installed it. I showed the page to friends and they all installed it. A bunch of them installed Firefox for the first time simply so that they could use this extension.

  15. Jon Pritchard June 26, 2006 / 9:04 pm

    Chris, I’ve got to say I agree with you. It rubs me up the wrong way too. I know Mozilla.com is different to the Foundation.

    I feel like I’m trying to have something marketed at me, and I know a lot of people might want this extension. But I don’t, and it’s just another piece of annoying advertising to me.

    I’m getting ever more suspicious with Google’s involvment with Mozilla as well, I like having their search engine in the top-right. But I disapprove of all these stupid extensions like the Browser Sync.

  16. Anonymous July 17, 2006 / 8:33 pm

    how do you remove joga?

  17. melania July 26, 2006 / 2:15 pm

    This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

  18. Anonymous August 9, 2006 / 12:12 pm

    Thanks all for your comemts about how wonderful is google or mozilla but I install this program for the word cup call Joga.com companion whis it was very used during the word cup, but now the word cup is over and I love to stop this open every time I open the google browse, I really want to remove this program I will very graiful if any body tell me how.

  19. Utin September 25, 2006 / 12:08 pm

    Click Tools | Extensions

  20. Cct November 10, 2006 / 8:30 am

    I want to remove Joga too and find it quite annoying that there is no simple way to do so. I’ll try using the tools – extensions

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