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Dropbox has acquired Readmill for a rumoured $8m.
The Berlin-based team behind the social and sharing e-reading app has also been acquired by Dropbox and will be moving out to San Francisco where Dropbox is based, according to a post by co-founder and c.e.o Henrik Berggren on the Readmill site.
The post reveals that the app is no longer taking new accounts and will not be available on Apple and Android after 1st July 2014 because the company “failed to create a sustainable platform for reading” in the e-book market.
Berggren said: “Readmill’s story ends here. Many challenges in the world of e-books remain unsolved, and we failed to create a sustainable platform for reading. For this, we’re deeply sorry. We considered every option before making the difficult decision to end the product that brought us together.” The company said it had carefully considered pivoting its business model to sell books, offer subscriptions, charge for the app and charge for premium features on the app, but “unfortunately, it is not possible to sell books on Apple’s platform at a competitive price." It added: “We also considered the book subscription model but did not find it to be a viable option for us. Even if all users paid for the app, it would not provide the necessary resources to sustain and develop it.”
Berggren said the Readmill team would be joining Dropbox, “where our expertise in reading, collaboration and syncing across devices finds a fitting home.” He said that millions of people used Dropbox to store and share their digital lives, so he believed it was a “strong foundation” on which to build the future of reading. “We’re delighted to work alongside this talented team and imagine new ways to read together,” Berggren said.
The Readmill app allowed users around the world to write in the margins of e-books and discuss their favourite passages. The company has told users that they can download their e-books and export the reading data from their Readmill accounts until 1st July, after that date it will all be deleted.