Facebook’s latest buyout is Push Pop Press, the digital book publisher behind Al Gore’s popular interactive app ‘Our Choice’ launched earlier this year. Does this mean Facebook intends to take its stake in the digital publishing arena?

Actually, both parties clarified that the acquisition is not a stepping stone for the 750 million-strong social network juggernaut into the field.  Push Pop cofounders Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris elucidated in a statement:

Now we’re taking our publishing technology and everything we’ve learned and are setting off to help design the world’s largest book, Facebook.

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.

Al Gore’s Our Choice will remain available for purchase, and we’ve decided that our future profits from the book will be donated to The Climate Reality Project. There are no plans to continue publishing new titles or building out our publishing platform that was in private beta. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and expressed interest in Push Pop Press.

Facebook, meanwhile, confirmed through a spokesperson that they are “not going into digital publishing,” as the acquisition is merely an effort to improve the way users share their personal stories.  It’s not entirely surprising, considering Mark’s long-term goals with the News Feed publisher from day one.  Facebook further explains its expectations for the Push Pop Press acquisition in the statement below:

“We’re thrilled to confirm that we’ve acquired Push Pop Press, a startup whose groundbreaking software changes the way people publish and consume digital content. We can’t wait for co-founders Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris to get started, and for some of the technology, ideas and inspiration behind Push Pop Press to become part of how millions of people connect and share with each other on Facebook.”

Digital publishing has been emitting a tractive force.  It’s the fattest competitor to take down, if not impair, traditional print media (a.k.a. newspapers) and you can’t say that’s impossible because it’s doing pretty well so far, though it’s had its own struggles.  The New Yorker’s iPad app, for example, is basking in the glory of strong sales with 100,000 iPad subscribers, 20,000 of which are subscriptions for $59.99 a year. The digital magazine industry is likely to prove itself relatively profitable should it continue to push forward into digital form as well.

However, issues over digital publishing vs. the traditional publishing are not likely to die anytime soon.  It would be a pain to go against traditional publishing purists that have a negative attitude towards indie (digital) publishing.  But let’s face it, even more bestselling authors are looking into indie publishing to reach a wider audience.

“People often confuse an agency helping its clients publish their titles to ebooks with the agency becoming a publisher themselves,” says Deidre Knight, president of the Knight Agency, who has recently been the target of some harsh criticism in the debate over the acceptable role of a literary agency in terms of digital publishing. “We’re not a publisher, because there’s a big distinction between publishers and agents who promote digital editions of their clients’ books.”