Facebook buys digital book firm Push Pop Press

Facebook has bought Push Pop Press, the digital book company formed by former Apple staff. 

 

 

In a statement on its website, Push Pop Press said: “We’re taking our publishing technology and everything we’ve learned and are setting off to help design the world’s largest book, Facebook.”

Push Pop Press drew attention earlier this year with the release of Our Choice, an iPad version of a book by Al Gore. The app took the text of Gore’s book, which was first published in 2009, and added interactive graphics, animation and more than an hour of video.

At the time Push Pop Press said the app would “change the way we read books”. In its statement on the Facebook acquisition the company said “Facebook isn’t planning to start publishing digital books”.

It is thought that Facebook has bought Push Pop Press for its design expertise. The company was founded by two former Apple engineers, Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas. Tsinteris worked on mapping and location services for Apple, while Matas is a user interface specialist.

Matas is credited with designing at least four of Apple’s default iPhone apps, including the Photos app. He also designed Photo Booth for the Mac. 

Facebook and Skype's video chat link-up

Video chat features are set to become the killer app in the world of social media now that Facebook has announced a partnership with Skype to offer just such a product hard on the heels of one rolled out by its rival Google.

The deal means that Facebook's 750 million users will now be able to connect with friends via video and not just through posting messages and poking one another.

The tie-up comes just one week after Google announced its social service called Google+ to a small invited group of users.

The search giant's video offering called Hangout has received rave reviews so far. It allows up to 10 people to connect with one another at any one time while Facebook can only connect people on a one on one video chat.

But Skype's CEO Tony Bates told press reporters and bloggers at the event launch in California that other features are on their way. No prizes for what that means.

The timing of Facebook's announcement could not be more annoying for the company. Of course the Skype deal is not a response to Google and Facebook has been working on it for months.

But the last thing the social networking behemoth wants is the constant reference that Google, regarded as a Johnny-come-lately as far as social is concerned, got video chat out of the gate first.

Read more at Facebook

Facebook to 'launch something awesome' next week

Facebook to 'launch something awesome' next week | The Digital Home - CNET News

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today that his company will "launch something awesome" next week, Reuters is reporting.

According to the news service, Zuckerberg told reporters in his company's Seattle office that the team there had developed the upcoming project. Facebook's Seattle office played an integral role in the development of the social network's recently improved mobile site, prompting Reuters to suggest the upcoming launch could be mobile- ortablet-related.

If the launch is tablet-related, it could be Facebook's long-awaited iPad application. The company currently offers an iPhone app, but iPad owners have so far been forced to use the full site. Earlier this month, The New York Times cited sources who said Facebook was readying an iPad app, and could be launching it in the coming weeks.

Then again, Facebook might unveil a new photo-sharing app for the iPhone. A couple weeks ago, TechCrunch announced that it had acquired a 50MB file containing images and documents on a new Facebook app that would allow users to share photos with others. That program, the blog claimed, wouldn't be integrated into Facebook's existing iPhone application, but would take advantage of the service's social graph.

If Facebook doesn't offer those platforms, it might just unveil a project TechCrunch spotted earlier this month, called Project Spartan. According to the blog, which cited anonymous sources, Spartan is designed to be an HTML5-based competitor to Apple's App Store. The service works in mobile Safari.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20075883-17/facebook-to-launch-something-awesome-next-week/#ixzz1Qvf8lhK3