Kindle Unlimited and Scribd competitor Oyster now available on the Web

Oyster, the popular e-book subscription service that's widely described as the "Netflix for books," is now available on the Web. Oyster was first launched in September last year on iOS with the release of its official app for iPhone and iPod touch. It then made its debut on iPad with the app's universal update in October. And just last month, it was made available on Android. Now, Oyster has launched on another platform, and it happens to be the ubiquitous platform that predates both iOS and Android: the Web. Indeed, Oyster is now fully accessible via Web browsers on desktop computers and mobile devices. The service's new Web version features an all-new Web reader that presents each chapter of a book as a single scrolling webpage, thereby making e-book reading on the Web just like reading a clutter-free Web article or blog post. According to the Oyster team:

In designing this experience, we wanted to move away from the way books are traditionally displayed on the web—contained in a PDF-style viewer. Instead, the Oyster for web experience is more like reading a blog post or web article (think the New York Times). The result is a reading experience that feels fast, fluid, and native to the web. Going forward we’re really excited to push this vision to make book reading on the web even better.

Oyster's Web reader also offers all of the five reading themes, five text sizes, and night mode found in Oyster's apps for iOS and Android. Of course, the Web reader is linked to the mobile apps, and vice versa, to keep users' libraries, reading activity, reading lists, recent books, and searches in sync. To check out Oyster for the Web, just go to Oyster's homepage and sign in. Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 7.0 or later, Oyster for iOS is available on the App Store for free. Oyster offers unlimited access to its library of more than 500,000 e-books, including bestsellers and classics from leading publishers, for $9.95 a month. Oyster's launch on the Web comes just about a week after Scribd, with offers unlimited access to its catalog of more than 400,000 e-books for $8.99 a month, updated its official iOS app with improved browsing and library management. More notably, it shortly follows the launch of Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's very own e-book subscription service that provides a selection of more than 600,000 Kindle e-books for $9.99 a month.