The archive · Consumer Apps · Strategic decision · 2010–2011
Push Pop Press' interactive-book bet ends in Facebook's 2011 acquisition
Ex-Apple designers built an interactive-book platform and shipped Al Gore's Our Choice; within a year Facebook bought the company for its technology.
Push Pop Press
What the business is
Push Pop Press built a publishing platform for interactive books—text, images, audio, video and interactive graphics explored through multi-touch—and released titles with partners like Melcher Media and Al Gore.
How it started
Push Pop Press was started in 2010 by Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, Apple alumni who had designed user interfaces and artwork for the iPad, iPhone and Mac OS X. They set out to re-imagine the book with a new way of publishing and exploring text, images, audio, video and interactive graphics, then teamed up with Melcher Media and Al Gore to create a new kind of book.
What happened
The first result was Al Gore's Our Choice, released earlier in 2011, and the response was strong: New York Times tech columnist David Pogue called it one of the most elegant, fluid, impressive apps he had ever seen and a showpiece for the new world of touch-screen gadgets. The company had also built out its publishing platform, which sat in private beta.
How it ended up
In August 2011 Push Pop Press announced it was joining Facebook: the ideas and technology behind the company would be integrated into Facebook to give people richer ways to share their stories, even though Facebook was not planning to start publishing digital books. Our Choice would remain available for purchase, future profits from it were pledged to The Climate Reality Project, and there were no plans to continue publishing new titles or the private-beta platform.
Background
Push Pop Press was started in 2010 by Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, Apple alumni who had designed interfaces and artwork for the iPad, iPhone and Mac OS X. They set out to re-imagine the book with a new way of publishing and exploring text, images, audio, video and interactive graphics, then teamed up with Melcher Media and Al Gore to create a new kind of book.
The first result was Al Gore's Our Choice, released earlier in 2011, and the response was strong: New York Times tech columnist David Pogue called it one of the most elegant, fluid, impressive apps he had ever seen and a showpiece for the new world of touch-screen gadgets. The company had also built out its publishing platform, which sat in private beta.
In August 2011 Push Pop Press announced it was joining Facebook: the ideas and technology behind the company would be integrated into Facebook to give people richer ways to share their stories, even though Facebook was not planning to start publishing digital books. Our Choice would remain available for purchase, future profits from it were pledged to The Climate Reality Project, and there were no plans to continue publishing new titles or the private-beta platform.
What has to be true
- The founders had shipped the interfaces behind the iPad and iPhone, so the bet on multi-touch books was made by the people who had defined the touch generation.
- One flagship title—Al Gore's Our Choice, praised by the New York Times' David Pogue—showed what the platform could do better than any spec or demo.
- Facebook's rationale matched the bet: with millions of people publishing to Facebook daily, richer, interactive ways to share stories were exactly where the technology added value.
What can be applied
Prove the medium with one flagship artifact: Push Pop Press's Apple-grade Our Choice made interactive books tangible, so Facebook bought the technology, not the publishing line.
Aftermath
As of 2011-08-02 Push Pop Press had just announced it was joining Facebook: its publishing technology was to be integrated into Facebook for richer story-sharing, while Al Gore's Our Choice remained available for purchase and future profits from the book were pledged to The Climate Reality Project. There were no plans to continue publishing new titles or the private-beta platform as the co-founders and team headed to Facebook.
Sources
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