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Nike and Google launch Joga.com
hpcanswers writes "Given the increasing popularity of social-networking sites among the young and affluent, Nike has introduced a new site dedicated to the world's most popular sport: soccer. While Nike provides the content (via its army of sponsored athletes, among others), Google provides the technical expertise. Orkut has been very popular in soccer-crazed Brazil, so Google may be able to make a brand extension here. Joga.com is currently invite only, though a form at the bottom of the home page takes requests for invitations." I actually found the launch of a site like this interesting not because of the content, but because of the trend in "private label" sites. It's a Shake'n'Bake Social Network, and you helped make it.
Oh, and check out the latest FIFA rankings, USA is ranked shockingly high!
I haven't purchased a Nike product for well over a decade due to their use of sweatshops in Asia. It would seem to me that Google would be indirectly supporting Nike's disgusting business practices by providing the tech support in this venture.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It's not Soccer, it's Metric Football.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
A new website has been lauched, dedicated to fairplay soccer:
joghurt.com
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Google provides the technical expertise.
Is this becoming a threat to "traditional" web development companies like the one I work for? Will Google be eating up development work for some of the larger sites?
Developers: We can use your help.
This seems like a first for google (at least in my observation), specially since all the other services they offer are very broad. For example news.google.com gives news of all types, maps.google.com gives maps to the whole country. But this stands out since it focuses on a paticular group of people, soccer fans. Of course this could be simply because this is done jointly with Nike.
Then again, maybe they will do the same for football, tennis, videogames and so on and in no time everyone will be included. Special Searches comes in to mind when talking about paticular groups, but thats just search related, not service based.
(Score: 5, I shouldn't have laughed at that)
It's football, you American clods!
And it's not metric football, it's fútbol.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Playboy and Google team up for Jerker.com.
What's is my best surprise when I start looking the page? the website is based on microsoft technology, only see the pages format -> .aspx (ASP .NET)
This is a strange animal, the help center is python http://help.joga.com/support, but the login is aspx. WTF??.. the privacy is googlishm (is a Google Account).
Looks like a special Orkut server mixed with Google stuff. The nike reference seems casual.
Superb marketing!
No "gsports.com" for Google Sports instead they use "joga.com". The 'g' in joga stands for Google like Gmail stands for Google Mail!
Oh you marketing overlords I am at your service.....
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
"While Nike provides the content (via its army of sponsored athletes, among others,..." ...and entered at $0.02/hour by kids in Vietnam
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
"For example news.google.com gives news of all types, maps.google.com gives maps to the whole country."
You could add Jabber (Google Talk) mapping to the bunch, which is closer to social networking, such as this joga.com is, than Google Local.
Animoog.org
G o o o o o o o o o o a l!!!!!!!!!!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
that this site looks terrible? The layout and color are horrible!
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
Yoga? Joe-ga? Least make it something easy to spell please folks otherwise its going to get very confusion...
SolarVPS - Quality Windows and Linux Virtual Servers
This could come horribly unstuck for Nike. You can play soccer barefoot. I assume that it is a slightly more dainty and skillful game: you cannot just lash out at the ball and expect your boots to protect your toes. Nevertheless it is a game so restricting the equippement used doesn't favour on team over another, it just leaves the players with more money to spend on beer afterwards.
There is quite a tradition of playing rugby barefoot. Perhaps letting the players talk via a website on whether to spend money on expensive equippement could end up transferring revenue from Nike to Coors.
...this could be bad... nay.. this could be the worst. thing. ever.
...we wouldn't want you to strain yourself.
Commericials will be changed forever.
[OPENING SHOT. CAMERA PANS OVER GREYING, SLIGHTLY ROTUND GENTLEMAN CALMLY TYPING AT HIS COMPUTER. HE IS SITTING AT HIS DESK, IN A SUNLIT HOME OFFICE. IT IS EARLY MORNING AND THE EXTERIOR SHOWS WAVES CALMY IMPACTING AGAINST THE SURF]
[VOICEOVER (John Lithgow)] : Meet David Random. Today David will walk a total of twenty-five feet. But just because he'll barely get out of his chair doesn't mean he won't be active. David will correspond with thousands of people, write seven hundred lines of code, recompile his kernel, download five Styx CDs, and write a major post in his blog. All the while, he won't miss a second of the Brazil-Argentina Futbol game. How will he do this? David utilizes the power of Google/Nike.
[THE MAN LEANS BACK IN HIS OFFICE CHAIR, PUTTING HIS HANDS OVER HIS HEAD AND SMILING]
[VOICEOVER] : With Google/Nike, you'll never need to visit more than one website... that would be like needlessly running around... [THE MAN LEANS BACK TOO FAR, FALLING TO THE GROUND IN AN EXPLOSION OF PAPER, COFFEE, AND OFFICE SUPPLIES]
[VOICEOVER] :
[FADE TO BLACK, SHOWING THE GOOGLE/NIKE LOGO AND THE SLOGON : "Google/Nike, we own you."]
[WOMANS VOICE] : David? You ok?
News for Jocks. Stuff that doesn't matter.
Would this have been news for nerds if it didn't have Google doing behind the scenes work?
Is Google still geeky enough for it to "matter" for us, even when their products and services doesn't mean anything at all besides that their servers are rolling?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And in Tagalog, Joga is slang for boobs.
I think the problem in the USA is that in order to be on TV it has to be able to stop every 5 mins for advert breaks. Hence you end up with your funny sports. Whats even funnier is that, although you are alone in the world, you still think you're right.
Soccer IS on TV, we just don't watch it. If that was such a huge advantage, don't you think that people would gravitate to watching it?
Whats even funnier is that, although you are alone in the world, you still think you're right.
Yes, because we know the majority is always right.
It sounds like something Hannibal Lector would be a member of.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Whenever i recieve an invitation for a social-networking site, i send an email: "Take care, you're computer is infected. Scan it now, or install Linux to get rid of it for ever."
Most people do know however, i hate football more than television or microsoft. I might escape this time.
Trust me, I work for the government.
Defense isn't always a bad thing, the same people that tell you soccer is too defensive will rave about shutout pitching in baseball and redzone defense in American football.
I thought soccer would catch on here once the national team started beating legitimate countries, but they've been very good for years now (currently ranked 5th by FIFA) and still nobody cares.
Stef! Log off Slashdot before you freak out your coworkers again.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Joga means "play" in Portuguese.
As a previous poster said, football doesn't catch on the USA because you cannot insert ads every five minutes. But I'd add that it's not violent enough for the USA (I'm thinking of American football and ice hockey). Plus, the score doesn't look spectacular at the end of the game.
I agree that a draw in a playoff shouldn't be resolved via penalty kicks, that's awful. I'm for the golden goal, but for some reason it didn't success..
Nope, in US vs the World, US superiority is always right.
"It's because we have so many sport choices. We know that soccer sucks, because we have sports to compare them to. Most other countries have very few choices for professional sports."
hehe thx for a good laugh! But being constantly reminded that Bush is not alone among Americans in his world view and knowledge is scary at the same time.
Soccer:
Eh? Never heard of it. (This not ignorance on my part, it is a health issue, apparently there are places in the UK where you can get beaten to a bloody pulp for even uttering that word).
Football:
A game that is usually played on a rectangular grass field with a goal at each end using a round leather ball. Football involves two teams of eleven players of whom one player in each team is the goalkeeper. The goalkeepers are the only two players on the field allowed to touch the ball with their hands. The object of the game is for the attacking players of your team (strikers and midfielders) to convey the ball accross the field, past the opposing team's defense (midfielders and defenders), past their goalkeeper and into the opposing team's goal. Your players are only allowed to use their feet to accomplish this although it is also acceptable to bounce the ball off of the chest the hips or hit it with one's head just so long as one does not touch it with one's hands. Successfully landing the ball in the opposing team's goal earns your team one point. IMPORTANT: At no time whatsoever are is any player, goalkeepers included, allowed to pick the ball up and run accross the playing field carrying it in his arms like a sissy.
END_OF_DISCUSSION
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
"Joga" is how yoga is spelled in many languages.
I can see how google could use its network to sort of create a global log in for a large network of social sites. Now we just have to watch who google gets in bed with...
Hmmm, lol, some interesting links!
- google + orkut
- google js
- is that what that means?
- LOL
Google uses all the marketing and relationship data that Brazilians have freely entered into Orkut- they locate the people who represent the target demographic (probably young, middle-class, males who are into soccer) and who have lots of connections on Orkut. Offer up invites and maybe a few free goodies to those key people, and suddenly you have "exclusive" network. Funny how you can make people feel privileged to give you their money...
NIKE AND GOOGLE AM SHOOT SCORE GOOGOOOGOALLLLLLLLLLLL!
;-)
PS. Since slashdot as an anti-lameness filter, it doesn't allow 100% pure brasil post. I encountered error #9 Ronaldhino "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!" "Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING."
PSS. It always amaze me how some people really take CAPS so seriously, like it was so much irritating.
PSSS. On joga.com they even put a style to make it BRASIL STYLE, look for the "PLAY BEAUTIFUL" box.
PSSSS. All those PSs are not a way to pass thru the lameness filter.
Ice hockey is Canadian. It is also popular in the United States (more NHL teams here since we have a lot more people). However, ice hokey is very unpopular on American television. It gets horrible ratings and is aired on some obscure sports channel (outdoor sports network I think) not even ESPN or Fox Sports (at least last time I checked). Not too popular and then after the strike, it became really not popular. Also, our sport of baseball has caught on in much of the world (latin america and japan), and hopefully this will continue.
Uh, where have you been?
Soccer IS catching on in the US.
It's the fastest growing sport in the US.
It's also the world's most popular sport.
Why is baseball the favorite sport in the US?
Because we're a bunch of lazy turds who like
to stand around doing nothing. That's baseball.
Tell me that you actually consider a baseball
play an athlete and I'll laugh at you.
Play a real sport: soccer.
Your generalizing that "we" think soccer is a bad
sport, etc.. is just that: generalizing.
Get out of the house and away from the computer and
take your 150 lb. spare tire with you.
I agree that a draw in a playoff shouldn't be resolved via penalty kicks, that's awful. I'm for the golden goal, but for some reason it didn't success
Not many people have the endurance to keep running up and downfield for a long time. A football game is 90 minutes plus 30 minutes extra time (if needed). Running up and down 120 minutes is very tiering, and there are genuine health concerns why the FIFA doesn't extend extra time.
The problem with penalty kicks is that they are random. No skill involved. Ironic for a sport that requires a great deal of skill. The NHL went back to penalties to decide tie games, so threre are good sides of deciding games with penalties. But, due to the random nature of penalties in football, it's a turn off.
As for football in the US, as other people pointed out, you can't put commercial breaks in televised football games every five minutes, so no major network wants them. No major network plays the games, no exposure, people won't play it.
You know, the one where the Chinese sweat shop labour kids can use Google China to talk to.... uh...nevermind.
What the hell is an article about football doing on slashdot? I bet it made atleast 50% of the /. crowd feel a chill going down their spine...
(currently ranked 5th by FIFA)
FIFA rankings are as accurate as a tarot card reading. The way points are calculated is flawed. If a lower ranking team beats a higher ranking team in an important game, they get a score multiplier (1.5 to 2.0, or something like that). It's the same if the last place New York Yankees beat the top spot Boston Red Sox and instead of their 2 points for the standing they get 4 because the rangers were a better team. Not to mention previous year scores also count. As if the Red Sox would start the season with 20 points because they were last year's champions. Stupid.
Just look at France in 2002 World Cup. Second FIFA ranking (or was it first? doesn't matter anyways) didn't even get to elimination round. Teams beating them got huge boost in rankings. Where they really that good or France simply being weak? The different teams on continents also get their score adjusted differently because even the FIFA knows that nothing comes close to Europe or South America. Again, if a team pulls an upstet and this team is from a handicapped continent, it will get a huge ranking boost. It doesn't really tell the real story. Could have been a fluke, bad luck, whatever, it's not consistent ranking.
FIFA needs to count rankings like they do in other sports/leagues: win = 3 points, tie away = 2 points, tie home = 1 point and loss = 0. By adding different conditions to the value of the victory they distort the real rankings.
With the current formula, it will be next to impossible for any team to displace a powerhouse like Brasil on the rankings.
If you're going to criticize a sport, at least know what you're talking about. In football, a touchdown is worth six points, and the extra point is worth 1. A field goal is worth 3. A safety is worth 2. The point isn't "artificial high scoring", it's that a touchdown is worth twice a field goal, and three times a safety.
Defense isn't always a bad thing, the same people that tell you soccer is too defensive will rave about shutout pitching in baseball and redzone defense in American football.
The point is defensive *balance*, not that any defense is bad. The defense and offense should be equally strong.
It isn't. American Football is by far the most popular sport. Basketball might be more popular than baseball at this point, but I'm not sure.
Can you say monkey on a stick?
G-Spots has already been claimed as the working title for Google's marital aide service.
I mean, we wouldn't want any confusion between that and G-Sports, would we?
Also, note that this service does not have Americans as its primary target market... so why use the English word "sport"? How about G-Deportes?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Well, seeing that the rankings don't really matter except as conversational fodder I don't see what would be gained by changing it to your way. If countries would get the same ranking boost by beating Vanuatu as they would beating Brazil then the rankings would truly be misleading and useless. For the most part the current ranking acts as a barometer of how the teams have been faring the last few years, but I agree that USA and Mexico do get help by playing the other weaker CONCACAF countries so much. However, both have been backing it up by also playing well out of their region and advancing to the second round of the World Cup on a somewhat consistent basis.
Soccer is completely out of balance; the defense is far too strong. When a 2-0 score is a blowout, then you know the sport is out of balance.
Don't let the erratic scoring system fool you, American football is very low scoring, and has touchdowns no more often than soccer has goals. Didn't the latest superbowl have only four touchdowns in four hours? Maybe if a goal in soccer was worth twelve points you'd think it was more interesting?
You neglect the fact that a low scoring game makes the scoring much more interesting, notice how a goal in soccer is a massive event, whereas scoring in basketball is completely irrelevent? A defense-orientated game is much more tactically interesting than where teams score every time they go forwards.
Do you know why Soccer doesn't catch on in the US?
Do you know why baseball doesn't catch on in Nigeria? The answer is just as irrelevent and uninteresting. For the record, more Americans play soccer than gridiron, which is largely just watched on TV. So much for American football being a 'sport', unless in America watching TV counts as a sport.
You know that in America, when talking about a sporting event, people spend more time talking about the adverts, sponsors TV channels, half-time shows, announcers etc than they do the actual game? That just about says it all.
We know that soccer sucks, because we have sports to compare them to.
You know that other countries also have other sports? Some countries even play baseball and basketball, and are actually better at it than Americans. But then in other countries, sport is about sport, it's not just a TV circus.
but almost every child here plays soccer. We know soccer. We just know that it's a bad sport.
They play it even though it's a bad sport? If it was that bad, why aren't all the kids playing gridiron instead? Maybe they've been brought up with the American ethic that gridiron is something to be watched on TV rather than played.
The solution? I've always thought that widening the goals posts would do a lot for the sport.
Yeah, that just about reinforces the stereotype of Americans having low attention spans. The only thing your idea would do is to dumb down the game to make it appeal to Americans, but we don't want people like you watching the game. We want people interested in the sport, not a Hollywood-style Entertainment Spectacle with cheerleaders and half-time shows, where the sport itself is just a sideshow.
Ever been to an NBA game? They have to pipe music over the tannoy throughout the entire game otherwise all the fans fall asleep. Great sport that eh?
Soccer has potential
If being the out and out, undisputed biggest and most popular game in the world is 'potential', then what exactly is the finished product? A few niche sports played almost entirely in North America?
in the world... In actual particapants, volleyball is about three times the size. and in viewership: formula one racing. http://www.johann-sandra.com/popular.htm here for more info
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
The point is defensive *balance*, not that any defense is bad. The defense and offense should be equally strong.
what is the point you are trying to make here? what kind of a scoreline would determine whether or not such "balance" exists? prejudiced people will always discerdit football (futbal) based on its usual low scoring results (compared to american sports) and pay no attention to how well a game is played tactically.
Are you kidding? No skill involved in penalty kicks? I see penalty kicks as a means of answering this question: "What would happen if they continue their scoring attempts?". Simple. The team with the best scorers (high scoring skills) and best goalkeeper (skill, or not?) wins.
Take it as a "sampling" of what would happen if time would continue going on. Of course, very simplified as there is only one attacker and one goalkeeper per try. But as another Poster said, this happens after 120', they all are exhausted!
Also, real football is played with the feet kicking a ball shaped ball, while American football is played with the hands throwing an inflated egg shaped... thing.
One rumor I heard is that it's called football, since the "ball" is one foot long.
Of course, real balls don't have length, they have diameter.
I found this cool comparison site to compare different types of social network sites: http://www.comparehangouts.com/
Someone that has an invite to either Joga or Orkut should post a review on there.
For those wondering about the name, "jogar" means to play. I wonder why they chose Portuguese, though. In Spanish, ti would be "Jugar".
And just to give you a dimension of the Orkut phenomenon here. It had in February some 22 billion page views. The largest portal had something like 1.5 billion page views in the same period. Orkut here is *really* huge.
The funny thing is, as far as I know, they don't make one dime from Orkut. Anyway, I guess it is far easier to make a deal with Nike in a World Cup year than trying to find a way to make money from this huge web property that is Orkut.
PS: I'm from Brazil. And yes, we'll win the World Cup.
It's curious how the big sports in the US barely succeed in the rest of the world (only basketball has a big audience here in Europe, and no one cares about American Football, Baseball or Hockey), yet the most popular sport doesn't catch up there.
I tried to sign in at the site and get the same thing you get at Orkut:
"Joga is unique, because it's an organically growing network of trusted friends. It is one of a kind network that focuses solely on a common interest around the game of soccer. Joga will help you connect to people who share the same passion for the game and also access exclusive content around athlete profiles, video clips and photos.
If you know someone who is a Joga member, he or she can invite you to join as well. If you don't know a Joga member, you will still be able to join the network by visiting www.joga.com.
We look forward to having you join us in the Joga community."
Uhm, ok, so I have to find someone who is on Orkut/Joga to even get into the community? But how can I find someone if I can't get into the community to do a search?
Then I recall that Gmail account invites were for sale on eBay, and sure enough, you can get Orkut on eBay. It's only a matter of time before Joga account invites are available on eBay.
Anyway, if you have a Joga account, I'd love an invite. My first dot last name @ google.com.
Isn't NASCAR a sport? What about golf? Why are these sports being ignored?
Really, what expertise?
If they mean the same "good work" Google did with Orkut, than everybody's in for trouble. Seeing Google as _the_ high quality web development company, one can't conceive they bought and kept a product in such a bad shape as that.
Forgive me if I guess wrong, but I think Orkut has been around for 4 years or so, right? I still get silly error messages all the time (ask an user if he hasn't seen the "Bad, bad server, no donut for you" at least 10 times in his life), either when you try to upload a picture, write a scrap, or do any sort of interaction. It's the same average I used to get when the product was launched, and it didn't belong to Google. Meaning they bought it for some reason that's not making good use of it.
Second, success of Orkut in Brazil had nothing to do with soccer (of course, the text didn't mention that as the reason, but suggests correlation). Orkut was the first social network that became widely known over there. That's all. Word of mouth took care of the rest.
One week ago I launched www.zero-zero.info with (somehow)the same goal in mind. We have support for news blogs, story, and we also have build in support for image and video(despite we did not make it public yet) Our site is running drupal/mysql and was made in my spare time by me and my cousin. Should I just close now my site? :-(
The site represents a shift in they way people think about how to attract people to sites.
How many of you will go to a site because of a tv advertisement? Probably quite a few, given my audience. Compare that number though to the amount of people who would join a website/visit a website after recieving an invitation from someone you know. Many more.
It works on two levels:
1. We trust our friends/acquaintances more than other forms of advertising, word of mouth advertising, viral advertising, virulent memes all work on us because of this. Google has formalised a way of doing this with the invitation system.
2. When you go to a website you are used to being able to view content and so on for free. This is especially true with community sites, because the content is not being created by the service provider. However, by removing this ease of access an illusion of exclusivity is created, making us want it more. Of course the volume of people is actually as high, if not higher, than it would be if you can sign up for nothing.
This exclusivity/invitiation system is an awesome way of getting a huge user base of people who are probably actually interested in your service (as opposed to randoms off slashdot, for example)
Can't we all just get along
"American Football".
I hope the jogo.com that I viewed was just the American version, since it refers to football/futbol/The Beautiful Game as 'soccer'. It's only known by that name in America (where I'm viewing from), so hopefully they have internationalized versions that correctly name the game. Otherwise, they'll get a lot of t'd off anti-fans from all the other countries in the world...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
The NHL went back to penalties to decide tie games, so threre are good sides of deciding games with penalties.
Only regular season games, not the playoffs. In the playoffs, a game can go on indefinitely (although over 2 hours is fairly uncommon).
I personally don't like the shoot-out in football or hockey. I would like them to just keep removing players from the field. So every 10 minutes you have one fewer players. I'm sure in football when it is 3 on 3, someone will score. In hockey, they might just have to pull both goaltenders after it becomes 2-on-2.
So Nike is tying into Brazil and the Samba Soccer - Beautiful Game style of play, that's cool. Maybe Addidas will start a site glorifying the German Smashmouth - Thugball style of play. Former German keeper Harold Schumacher could be featured with footage of his 1982 coma-inducing whack of French substitute Battiston.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Actually, here are the facts: Auto racing is the number one live spectator sport in the United States. In 1984, soccer passed baseball as the most popular team sport in the United States. So, I guess soccer is the most popular sport in the World AND the United States. :)
It seem to me that general social networking as a softwarce commodity could be used by a lot of different products. Anyone know if such a thing is being done expressly with the goal of being pluggable into other projects?
So today, I don't have mod points and this didn't come up for meta-mod. Lovely. Just want to second that this is not off topic in any way.
Nike launched an ad saying 'something was coming' this is the something.
Equally strong? What does that actually mean?
Congratulations - you managed to squeeze the word Folks 5 times into that small post. Such actions can only be commended.