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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.
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.
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.
It's football, you American clods!
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)
Why not? Humor is the best way of dealing with the ugliness in the World - especially with things that are beyond our control (yeah, like not buying their products will make a difference when there are millions of folks who don't give a shit and buy it.). That's why there's so much comedy and humor around death. It's the folks who have the attitude of "It's not funny! Don't laugh!" who really worry me and who I stay away from.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
G o o o o o o o o o o a l!!!!!!!!!!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
...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?
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!
It sounds like something Hannibal Lector would be a member of.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
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.
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..
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
Yeah, but you'll get beaten up there for whatever pretext they can come up with.
I know rugby fans who insist on making the distinction between Association football and Rugby football.
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.
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?
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.
For example, Intel, IIRC, started paying some of their workers a much better wage than normal 3rd world wages. It was so good, the local physicians gave up their practices to work at the INtel plant. So, the locals lost all of their medical care because Intel decided ( to shut up the sanctimonious white sub-urban liberal arts college students) to pay a better wage.
Those folks above really need to see the big picture. Those folks know what to do and they'll do it in their own time - their way. We need to respect that.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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.
The reality is this: companies like Nike, Walmart, and others who indirectly run "sweatshops" in Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries may not live up to the labor standards in first world economies.
However, in parts of the world where this is rampant, these "sweatshops" are also the best thing that happened to the people who are employed here. It is permitting them to nudge their way out of abject poverty and sustain themselves. This is very serious.
While activism and human rights efforts have helped to uplift the working conditions, and push for more reasonable labor laws in these countries, if these "sweatshops" were to be closed down as a result of this media- and public-activism, that would truly do more harm than good to the population in question.
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
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...
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