Oyster: A Spotify For Books

Oyster, a fledgling mobile service for Spotify-style on-demand books, has raised $3 million in funding led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Oyster, which is still a work in progress, will let users of its mobile app access, discover, and read an ever-growing range of titles and genres, all on your smartphone and all for a flat monthly fee, which it hasn't yet disclosed. In a blog post, the founders emphasize they'll focus a lot of their attention on the discovery aspect of Oyster to help readers finding new titles to read by considering all your existing sources of book recommendations: your friends, TV shows, role models, and algorithms. "When everyone has access to the same library, you can share and curate with confidence," they write. "Friends can read the same book in one-click, without having to make an additional purchase or hunt for a link to buy it." There are a handful of subscription-based models floating around, but their focus is usually on a niche selection of titles. Yesterday, Harper Collins announced it will start offering subscription-based business and leadership titles through e-learning company Skillsoft's on-demand training library. The TED Books app charges $14.99 for a three-month, six-mini-books plan that delivers short titles written by its conference speakers. But because so much of Oyster's mission is about helping its users discover new titles, it's naturally looking to offer as wide a range of genres, publishers, and authors as possible. That... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2012-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Adaptive Books Acquires New Titles Plus the Zane Grey Estate

Founded in 2012 by veterans of the entertainment business, Adaptive Studios is an unusual business venture originally focused on repurposing moribund or abandoned movie scripts into new content for different media, including books, movies, and TV shows. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-09-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Netflix announces its first TV shows and movies from Millarworld

Today, Netflix announced the first TV shows and movies based on comic book writer Mark Millar's properties. Netflix will add two television series and three movies to its original programming. Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2018-07-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple’s App of the Year Makes Sense If You've Been Paying Attention to the News

For a picture of what life was like in 2017, look no further than the apps, movies, books, and music that topped the App Store and iTunes charts. This week, Apple revealed the most popular titles that iOS users downloaded over the course of the year. In terms of media, the top choices weren’t... Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2017-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Exploring Lonely Planet’s World

Lonely Planet, the world's number one guidebook publisher, has not only printed over 145 million guidebooks covering 95% of the world’s destinations, Lonely Planet has created content in over fourteen languages, including everything from magazines and TV shows to children’s books, cookbooks,... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-08-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Netflix acquires Mark Millar's comics publishing house (updated)

Mark Millar is a well-known name in the world of comics, which is why today's announcement is such a big deal. Netflix has revealed that it's acquired Millarworld, Millar's comic book empire, and will be creating original movies and TV shows from the... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2017-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon boosts kids' reading app with Signature Stories

Reading app Amazon Rapids has extended its offering with Signature Stories, a feature which introduces stories from its TV shows. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2017-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Discounts its Fire Tablet Bundle an Additional $27.98 With This Code - Deal Alert

Through this Saturday, sink the 16GB Fire Tablet bundle's already discounted price to just $59.99 using the code FIREBUNDLE at checkout -- a significant deal considering its typical $107.97 value. The bundle includes the latest 16GB Fire 7" Tablet with special offers ($69.99), Amazon cover... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2017-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Flashy monster battles in 'Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions' will delight fans

When Kazuki Takahashi’s manga “Yu-Gi-Oh” debuted in 1996, it spawned a mammoth franchise that includes the iconic Duel Monsters card game, TV shows, video games and character merchandise. The fourth feature, “Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions,” was released in Japan in 2016 to mark its 20th... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Leaked Windows 10 build shows Microsoft filling a major content hole: Ebooks

For years, Microsoft has sold movies, TV shows, and music, in addition to apps—but not ebooks. A leaked Windows 10 build, however, shows Microsoft plans to shore up that gap in an upcoming release. The leaked build obtained by MSPowerUser reveals a dedicated section of the Windows Store where... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2017-01-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Takes $80 off Fire Tablet and Tap When Bought Together, Today Only - Deal Alert

Today only, if you bundle together Amazon's Fire Tablet and Tap, you'll save $80 on the two. The bundle includes the Fire Tablet with 7" Display, Wi-Fi, and 16 GB of storage, and Amazon Tap, the Alexa-Enabled Portable Bluetooth Speaker. With the Fire tablet from Amazon you can enjoy millions of... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2016-12-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Randi Zuckerberg Hopes to Battle Inequality in Silicon Valley With Her New Kids Show

"I've spent a decade in Silicon Valley," said Randi Zuckerberg. "Innovation is everywhere. It's supposed to be the center of forward thinking. [So] why can I count the number of women executives on one hand? Or people of color?" At Thursday's premiere event for Zuckerberg's new television show... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sainsbury's to close its digital entertainment business

First it was Tesco, now it's Sainsbury's. The British supermarket will soon be closing its streaming and digital storefront services, called Entertainment on Demand collectively. These covered eBooks, music, movies and TV shows, and digital magazines... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2016-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How Kickstarter became one of the biggest powers in publishing

The crowdfunding site is now launching more books than all but the very largest publishers. Richard Lea finds out how a resource for small enterprises is making some big changesFour months after launching on Kickstarter, a children’s book that tells the stories of 100 inspiring women has raised... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2016-09-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barnes & Noble kills off Nook app and video store as part of digital retreat

Barnes & Noble ceded another battle in the ongoing war with Amazon over digital hearts and minds.The company will end the dedicated Nook app and video store on March 15, which was where you could purchase content for Nook-branded hardware, according to a report in diginomica.Nook digital... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2016-03-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hoopla Announces Deal with Ingram

Officials at Hoopla say inclusion of Ingram's CoreSource titles will significantly broaden their catalog of more than 400,000 movies, TV shows, music albums, ebooks, audiobooks and comics. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Recruits Comedians, Engineers for Expanding Audio Service

Amazon.com Inc. is ramping up its investment in podcasts and other radio-style shows to expand the types of programming it offers via Audible, the audio book company it acquired in 2008.Audible has recruited well-known comedians, along with radio and podcast producers for the initiative, and job... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harlequin Hopes to Find 'Binge' Readers with New E-Serial

Mimicking the model popularized by streaming television, Harlequin is releasing all eight parts of its new Tough Justice digital serial today. The hope is that readers will binge-read the series, as they binge-watch certain TV shows. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is Subscription the Future for Digital Comics?

The subscription model is changing how consumers get music, movies and TV shows, and now a number of services are trying the model on digital comics. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon set to slash price of Prime membership for one day only

Amazon Prime is a good deal to begin with, bringing two day free shipping, video streaming of movies and TV shows, as well as original content, music streaming and even a Kindle lending library for those books you've been meaning to read. For all of that you pay an annual fee of $99, which is... Continue reading at Betanews

[ Betanews | 2015-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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