It's odd how often these days the phrase “the Netflix of” comes up, immediately followed by the field in question. Recently spotted include the Netflix of wine, the Netflix of e-learning, and the Netflix of journalism, but one particular feather in a cap may well be the title “the Netflix of e-books.” There's some word suggesting that Oyster may well have that particular feather in line thanks in part to its wider release to iPad.
Originally, Oyster started life as an iPhone-only system, and moreover, it could only be accessed by invitation. But recently, Oyster added an iPad version and threw open the doors, allowing all users on these platforms to come in, and included a free 30 day trial to boot. This is a step regarded on several fronts as a necessity, as the whole idea of “e-book subscription services” is still a very new one, and getting users better acquainted with the services in question isn't a bad idea at all.
The Oyster service offers up plenty of content, with access to over 100,000 e-book titles at the low price of $9.95 a month, and early word suggests that the interface is easy to work with as well, making Oyster a service well-placed to offer what users are after. But the addition of the iPad interface may prove helpful here as well, as more than a few don't much care for trying to do any serious amount of reading on a smartphone-sized interface. Better yet, subscribers' books will sync between the two devices, allowing for easy moving back and forth between the two.
While exact numbers aren't forthcoming about the current user levels, there are some telling notes that suggest this is a well-used service already. It took 10 days after the original launch for users to read fully a million pages, and the second million came just six days later. A third million took a mere three days, and there are plenty more sign-ups in the works. That certainly suggests wide use, and the word coming in about rival service Scribd suggests that the idea of subscription reading is one that's likely to be well in vogue. Scribd launched back in 2007 and boasts around 80 million users to its credit, though only about two percent of this number ranks as a “power user,” reading 10 books or more a month. Particularly noteworthy, however, is that while iPad ranks as the most used device on Scribd, it's closely followed by both Android devices—including the Nook, the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7—and desktop and laptop PCs. The iPhone is the fourth most popular, but it's actually behind by a fair margin.
The importance of having e-books available for tablets is quite clear from this information, though it's also worth noting how important the desktop and laptop PC still are. With all the goings-on about the “post-PC era,” the fact that such devices are still in clear use is probably an unexpected development to some. But of more ready note is that the subscription book service is a big part of the online landscape, and even ignoring the devices used to access same, will likely continue to be important for some time.
Oyster, Scribd, and the likely competitors to follow are part of something much bigger: the increasing rise of the online infrastructure. With video games, video, music and books now available online, the numbers of users turning to said infrastructure for entertainment—and beyond—is likely to only increase as well.
Edited by
Alisen Downey 
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