WebProNews » Joga

Joga Open To Most

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:51:16 +0000

It appears that Google and Nike’s soccer community, Joga, has been opened up to basically everyone with a Google account (although it may require an Orkut login, not sure).

I’ve poked around in it, and it is basically just a shell for Orkut, and if you aren’t that into soccer/futbol, it probably won’t hold any appeal for you. Its Orkut, with better styling, a few customization options (background image) and a lot of soccer profile options (style of play, position, favorite score, favorite national team, worst in-game injury).

Perhaps Miel is more into soccer than me, and would like to give it a shot?

A note: No matter which background image you pick, it appears Nike has figured out how to make sure you never miss the Nike “swoosh” logo. Branding! Yeah!

Here are some screenshots.

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Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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Google, Nike Play Beautifully Together

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:32:49 +0000

Google and Nike kicked off a collaborative community website exclusively for soccer fanatics. Signing up for Joga.com automatically takes visitors through a series of steps for setting up a blog within, a la MySpace, where they can upload photos and videos.

The term “joga” was taken from a Portuguese expression “Joga bonito,” meaning “play beautiful,” says Google software engineer Pedram Keyani.

It is “a phrase that symbolizes both any football player’s desire to embody the grace of the game and our goal to offer a community site that helps promotes the sheer fun, skill, sportsmanship and community spirit that make football truly the world’s favorite game,” said Keyani.

Google lent its search technology to the site to help members seek out content, community information, and player information. Those with a personalized Google account already, like Gmail, can gain access immediately.

The community inside works like many social networking sites, utilizing friend requests, alrets, and instant messaging.

If Joga members get really lucky, podcast phenom SoccerGirl will sign up. We’d link to SoccerGirl if she weren’t perpetually sans vtements while podcasting and seemingly never actually talks about soccer-well, she might but we’re not really listening.

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Google And Nike Launch Soccer Community

Andy Beal — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:19:41 +0000

Nathan has details of Joga, a new site for soccer (real FOOTball) fans launched by Google and Nike.

From the Joga site…

Joga is a place to meet other soccer players, share your own soccer experiences and enjoy photos and videos from around the world.

Membership is by invite only. Let’s hope this is actually used by soccer fans as opposed to criminals.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Nike And Google Kickoff Joga

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:43:35 +0000

A soccer-focused community website based on Google’s invite-only Orkut service recently launched in advance of this year’s Wolrd Cup.

Football fans who prefer the pitch to the gridiron have another option for their community needs, if they can get an invitation to join. Joga will be the latest play in the social media field, one that should get a boost from the building interest in the World Cup, which kicks off in Munich on June 9th.

The Joga site described its focus as a way to “help remind the world how the game was meant to be played.” Users will be able to share photos and videos, and create communities focused on their interests. Nike will create some official communities for particular athletes and cities.

Users will be able to create a Starting 11 dream team in their Joga profiles. The Starting 11 can contain professional players, friends, or both. Think Brazilian star Ronaldo alongside Arsenal scorer and French international Thierry Henry as the starting strikers in a 4-4-2.

BusinessWeek profiled the service, which should debut officially this week. Becoming part of the service means receiving an invitation to do so first. And the focus will be solely on soccer.

It’s an attempt to capture the interest of the heatedly-desired young male demographic globally that comprises Nike’s target market. One Nike official noted the success of MySpace and related sites as an influence:

“As we saw the social networks grow in the U.S. and elsewhere, we asked, ‘What if this was around sports, a specific sport?’” says Trevor Edwards, Nike’s vice president for global brand management. “We are really excited about it.”

The real excitement could come from the competition stemming from the Google/Nike partnership versus Yahoo/Adidas, the latter two being official sponsors for the World Cup. PaidContent.org noted how Google and Nike “develop buzz the unofficial way” with Joga. How might Yahoo and Adidas respond, if at all?

And of course, be ready to celebrate when Italy takes its fourth World Cup this summer. Go Azzurri!

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Google And Nike Launch Soccer Website

Nathan Weinberg — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:41:03 +0000

Google and Nike have launched Joga, a website for soccer fans and players (and it says soccer, not football). Its invite-only, and logins are through Google accounts (which is really surprising to me).

You can get an invite by leaving your email, or by getting invited by another Joga member. A Google Video is even built into the homepage.

The few details we have:

The help center discusses city and athlete communities created by Nike for pro athletes. You can upload videos and photo albums, and create a soccer dream team (“Starting 11″).

Welcome to Joga – the community for soccer players dedicated to keeping the game beautiful.

Joga is a place to meet other soccer players, share your own soccer experiences and enjoy photos and videos from around the world.

Join us and help remind the world how the game was meant to be played.

Play beautiful

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.

Joga is an online community created by Google and Nike for anyone anywhere in the world who shares a love for soccer, the world’s most popular sport. Joga is about getting to know your fellow fans; creating games and clubs; accessing athletes from Nike; and enjoying video clips and photos (you can even upload your own). You can strengthen existing friendships and begin new ones, join a wide variety of professional athletes and soccer communities, and even create your own to discuss soccer, exchange tips on the coolest moves, browse through various pitches worldwide, and plan your next game.

But most of all, Joga is about “Joga Bonito” – Portuguese for “play beautiful.” Are you ready to start down the path of soccer bliss? Join us, and show the world what playing beautiful means to you.

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Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.