Friday, April 10, 2015

Oyster’s New eBookstore is About Customer Retention, Not Competing With Amazon

ebookstore news,    Oyster



One of the three big names in subscription ebooks suddenly decided to launch a retail ebookstore to compliment its Netflix-style unlimited service. Am I the only one who wondered why?
oyster books
Earlier today many news sources reported that Oyster was launching an ebookstore. They're saying that the startup is trying to take on Amazon, or that Amazon is under attack, or stuff like Oyster wanted to take on both Amazon and Apple.

I'm coming to this story late in the day not because I missed out on the pre-brief (I got it, actually) but because I spent some time thinking about why Oyster launched the ebookstore.

To put it simply, Amazon has nothing to do with it. Here's why that premise is wrong:
  • An ebookstore with its own proprietary DRM and walled garden is not a threat to Amazon (exception: Apple, with its huge hardware platform).
  • An ebookstore which only sells in the US is not a serious threat to Amazon.
So why did Oyster launch an ebookstore?  More

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