Google could soon be adding another all you can eat service to their Google Play store soon, with a ‘portion’ of the all-you-can-eat eBook service Oyster team heading over to join the Google Play Books team at Google after announcing plans ‘to sunset the existing Oyster service over the next several months’ on their blog last week.
Oyster launched in the US two years ago, offering subscribers access to over 1 Million eBook titles that users can access on their smartphone, tablet or web browser. Books could be read on or offline with books appearing instantly in your library. Oyster also offered the option to purchase books not offered through their subscription and have those appear in your personal library. Sound familiar?
Though not officially confirmed, it’s being rumoured that Oyster has been purchased by Google as an ‘acqhire’, with sources telling ReCode that Google will end up paying Oyster investors ‘for the right to hire some of its staff’. Google did go as far as confirming a ‘portion of the team’ will join the Google Play Books team.
Oyster was charging customers US$9.95 per month for access to the service, which included new release and classic titles such as The Hobbit, the Harry Potter series and Catch 22.
The pricing structure is similar to that paid monthly by users using the Google Play Music All Access or YouTube Music Key subscription service, though the latter has yet to launch outside the US as yet.
A move to an all-you-can-eat Google Play store offering access to apps, games, movies, music, books and news content through magazines for a monthly fee is the dream for a number of users and adding the Books component would be a step in the right direction, though it’s unclear whether this is the ultimate goal for Google.
It’s only early days as yet, we’ll have to wait and see what Google has in store.
Would you pay to use a monthly subscription based eBook service?
