Google & Nike Team for Joga.com Football (Soccer) Community
Just in time for the World Cup Google and Nike have joined forces to launch Joga.com, a niche targeted online community for Jogadors, players of football (or soccer). The Orkut for Football (Soccer, Futbol) Players is currently by invite only.
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.
Joga.com also offers blogs! Here’s a nice rundown of the system with screenshots via SEOCase.net. With some much blogging and content going on at Joga.com, one has to assume that Google & Nike would be opening the gates to their walled garden after some time - in an effort to share the world’s information of course.
It is of no coincidence that Joga is Portuguese for “to play” and Google’s core online community Orkut is 74% Brazilian. And in case you didn’t know, the world of Football revolves around Brazil. Additionally, two members of Team Brasil Ronaldo and Rondaldinho are featured on the Joga.com homepage.
All in all this is a smart move by Nike Football to get more exposure in the middle class Brazilian Futbol community and Google to use the International draw of Football / Soccer to build upon their lagging community efforts (outside of Brazil). It will be exciting to see the amount of football players from Japan, US, England, Germany, Brazil and Argentina among other countries conversing, swapping ideas, reviewing products and meeting via Joga.com.
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Comments
5 responses so far ↓
Thierry on Mar 19, 2006 at 11:19 pm
First of all, Ronaldo is not a money-hungry duffus. Ronaldo, like Ronaldinho, was poor growing up in Brasil, and today they both remain humble. Ronaldo is a UN ambassador against poverty for crying out loud. Ronaldo donates hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars annually for charitable purposes. In Brasil, where I come from both Ronaldo and Ronaldinho are seen as heroes of the people, giving them hope that they can make it in life. But in Brasil, today’s hero can be forgotten tomorrow. That saddens me the most.
Loren Baker, Editor on Mar 19, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Yeah, you’re right, I should not be making fun on Ronaldo, although yes - I do hear he has become a bit out of touch with his roots.
Lincoln Ellis on Mar 21, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Loren,
Glad to see that you picked up Nike and Google’s announcement yesterday.
If you file another version of your story you might site Goal.com - which has a 10yr track record of publishing in over 10 languages and counts members from 203 of the 207 FIFA sanctioned countries – as the Grandfather of this idea. Not coincidentally, Goal.com is launching its own revamped community site – my.goal.com - April 15th.
Feel free to contact us if you’d like further information.
Thanks and All the best
Lincoln
Lincoln Ellis
Managing Director
Goal.com
646.206.5717
295 Greenwich St.
New York, NY 10007
Loren Baker, Editor on Mar 21, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Thank you Lincoln, I’d like to touch upon the new Goal community once it launches. Please feel free to email me at lorenbake@yahoo.com with some more information on the site and your business.
Thiago on Mar 23, 2006 at 8:34 am
Do we have some details about the deal?
I bet google found some way to monetize his huge Brazilian Orkut base…
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