That Ends That: Facebook Kills Push Pop Press

A couple of months ago a company called Push Pop Press appeared out of nowhere with an electronic book called "Our Choice." I was intrigued by it not because of the book, but because there were hints that they were developing a publishing tool that they might make available to others.

During an online chat at TED.com Mike Matas, User Interface Designer at Push Pop Press gave the following answers[4] about whether they were going to make a publishing tool:
A. The tools we are building are not a development environment but are a layout tool (and much more user-friendly), but we can’t announce any specific details on the product quite yet.

A. We are building a publishing platform that we plan on releasing to the public in the future. Right now it's in private beta and we are working with authors to create books with our tool.

Clearly I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.


Facebook just bought the company, but not to get into publishing electronic books as the following from Push Pop's announcement reveals:
Although Facebook isn't planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing to Facebook each day, we think it's going to be a great home for Push Pop Press.[1]
It goes on to say:
There are no plans to continue publishing new titles or building out our publishing platform that was in private beta.

I wonder if Facebook made them an offer they couldn't refuse, or whether the company decided that being bought by Facebook was a more secure financial future than being in the publishing game.

Either way, it's just another reason to hate Facebook.

  1. PushPopPress: About
  2. CNET: Facebook buys digital bookmaker Push Pop Press
  3. NotesOnVideo: Push Pop "Our Choice" app initial impressions
  4. NotesOnVideo: More on Push Pop Press interactive books

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