CNET 
 
 Oyster, a subscription service for e-books that launched two years ago, is calling it quits. 
 
 The service's founders announced in a company blog post Monday that they will move toward retiring the existing service in the next few months. The blog post did not give a reason for the closure but hinted that there were other ambitions for the service. 
 
 "We believe more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade," they wrote. "Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for ebooks." 
 
 Representatives for the New York-based company did not immediate respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Google confirmed that it has hired "a portion of the Oyster team" to work at Google Play Books but declined to provide further details. A report in Recode said, citing unnamed sources, that the hiring includes Oyster's CEO and two co-founders. Google was not immediately available to comment to CNET. 
 
 Oyster, which was founded in 2012 and launched its service a year later, took a novel approach to the e-book market, formerly offering only a subscription book service for $9.95 a month. The idea attracted the attention of Amazon, which last year launched a rival subscription service dubbed Kindle Unlimited that offered all-you-can-eat e-books and audiobooks for $9.99 per month. 
 
 Despite Amazon's entry into subscription ebook market, Oyster's model did little to replace traditional book sales, mostly because binge-reading is more difficult than binge-watching movies. Consumers, who are flocking to other subscription services like Netflix and Spotify, appear reluctant to sign up with the equivalent for books. Even Amazon has declined to discuss how well its service is performing. 
 
 Oyster, which had raised $17 million, changed its model in April when it announced an expansion into online retail with an e-book store that would sell individual books, with hopes of attracting new customers to its service. 
 
 The move came at an auspicious time for the book industry, as publishers have begun setting prices evenly across the e-book market. By expanding into online sales, Oyster was gunning for Amazon, estimated to control more than half the US e-book market and even more abroad. 
 
 However, Oyster did make early headway within the book industry by signing up three of the five biggest US publishers, amassing a library of more than 1 million titles. But even these publishers have chosen to wait as long as six months to release their newest titles on subscription services like Oyster. 
 
 Oyster users could also only access the service through an app for smartphones, tablets and computers -- but not Amazon's popular Kindle e-reader. (Oyster does have an app for the Amazon's Fire tablet, though). 
 
 Update, September 22 at 7:34 a.m. PT: Added information on Google's reported hiring of some Oyster employees. ||||| Oyster, a company that provides a Netflix-like book subscription service, is shutting down. And most of its team is heading over to Google. 
 
 In a blog post on Monday, Oyster’s founders said they were “taking steps to sunset” the company’s service, which launched in 2012. “We believe more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade,” they wrote. “Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for e-books.” 
 
 Those opportunities may happen at Google. A rep for the search giant confirmed that “a portion” of the Oyster team has joined Google Play Books, its online store for books. People familiar with the company say that CEO Eric Stromberg and co-founders Andrew Brown and Willem Van Lancker are part of the team joining Google. 
 
 Google is resistant to the notion that it bought Oyster. But sources said it will end up paying investors, who put a reported $17 million into the company, for the right to hire some of its staff. In other words, this is an “acqhire.” 
 
 Google went through this sort of exercise recently. In July, the company swooped in when Homejoy, a startup connecting customers with professional cleaners online, retired. Google hired around 20 of Homejoy’s engineers, as Re/code first reported. Later that month, Google launched an advertising product for professional services that looked remarkably similar to Homejoy’s model. 
 
 So does Google want to launch its own version of Oyster’s book subscription? The company declined to comment. If it does launch a service, it will end up competing with Amazon, which launched its own $10-a-month e-book service in July 2014. ||||| We have REALLY big news for you. We’re talking Infinite Jest big. 1 Today, in addition to your Oyster subscription, you can also buy any book you could ever want in our brand new ebook store (including Infinite Jest!). 
 
 
 
 With our new ebook store, virtually any book you can think of is available on Oyster, including all new releases and pre-orders like Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman and Jonathan Franzen’s Purity. And through our unlimited subscription service (now known as Oyster Unlimited), you still have access to the same million books—from Harry Potter to American Sniper—for the same monthly price. 
 
 Everything we do at Oyster is focused on connecting readers like you with books you’ll love. Over the past year and a half, we’ve worked hard to create the leading subscription service for books and build the best ebook discovery and reading experience for mobile and tablets. 
 
 We’ve been so thrilled by the enthusiasm we’ve seen for Oyster so far and at how much you’re reading on Oyster—over a 100 million pages a month, up from just 8 million in December 2013. It’s clear that there is huge demand from readers for an app that helps them find great books and lets them read them in beautiful, easy-to-use environment. 
 
 Now we are expanding Oyster so you can access all your options—subscription and for-purchase—in one place. You’ll never have to go anywhere else to get a book, because everything you’re looking for is on Oyster. Go ahead, try it out. 
 
 The Girl on the Train? Absolutely. Becoming Steve Jobs? It’s right there. Dead Wake? Look no further. 
 
 
 
 
 
 The store includes all of the biggest five publishers in the US (that’s Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster) and many more from Scholastic to Harlequin and Norton to Chronicle. It’s the center of your books universe. 
 
 
 
 And the best part is that whether you buy, subscribe, or both, you can always enjoy the full Oyster experience—the best content across subscription and for-purchase books, beautiful design built for mobile reading, and a great discovery experience with spot-on editorial, algorithmic, and social recommendations. 
 
 Wondering how to purchase a book from our store? You can buy books on our brand-new website or in the Android app. Purchases will automatically sync to all of your devices. 
 
 On top of that, we added a toggle and banners to help you see what books are available in subscription, redesigned the Explore tab to add new categories (43 in all!), added tons of new complementary colors to book detail pages, and incorporated a lot of nice tweaks and improvements throughout. To get started, update your Oyster app to version 2.0 through Google Play or the App Store, or visit our website to see all the new books. 
 
 And to celebrate, we’re giving away three of our top new books to a lucky winner: Open City (which our editors at The Oyster Review named the Best Book of the Decade So Far), Becoming Steve Jobs, and The Girl on the Train. We want to see where your favorite place to read is! Tag a photo on your instagram with #whereiread for a chance to win. 
 
 1 
 
 Bigger than the Great Concavity. Bigger than the O.N.A.N. circa the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, though perhaps a non-physical comparison is more appropriate, in which case it is bigger even than James O. Incandenza’s complete filmography. ||||| Amazon.com Inc. is working on a new subscription service that would deliver TV shows and movies over the Internet, ramping up the battle among Web companies to control entertainment in the living room. 
 
 The Internet retailer has in recent weeks pitched a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies, including General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Viacom Inc., among others, according to people with knowledge of the proposal. 
 
 Associated Press Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos 
 
 Amazon's subscription push is a challenge to rivals such as Netflix Inc. and Google Inc. as they race to dominate digital delivery of TV shows and films, encroaching on turf traditionally controlled by cable- and satellite-television providers. 
 
 Apple Inc. is also pushing more deeply into TV, and plans to announce 99-cent rentals of television shows through its iTunes store from News Corp.'s Fox and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC as early as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. 
 
 Apple wants to offer rentals of new shows, available after they air, these people said. Apple is also working on a new device that streams Internet video directly to television sets, according to one person with knowledge of the matter. 
 
 Amazon appears to be targeting a similar model to Netflix, focusing on older, "catalogue" content, according to people briefed on the meetings. Executives at media companies often view the availability of older content on the Web as less of a threat to their existing business. 
 
 Amazon's new subscription service would be viewable on a Web browser, or through devices such as Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 videogame console. Amazon currently sells individual episodes of TV shows on those devices, often for $1.99 apiece. It also sells and rents digital movie downloads. 
 
 The Battle for the Living Room Enlarge Image Close Alamy Amazon.com: Sells on-demand videos playable on set-top boxes and TVs; wants to offer unlimited viewing of older TV shows and movies for subscribers. 
 
 Netflix: Online streaming service lets subscribers play older TV shows and movies on media players and game consoles. 
 
 Apple: Apple TV box currently plays videos purchased with iTunes on a TV set; wants to offer 99-cent rentals of new TV shows. 
 
 Google: Google TV software seeks to merge TV and Web programming on TVs using various hardware. 
 
 Hulu: A paid subscription service will offer new episodes of many TV shows on Internet-connected TVs and other devices. 
 
 Media companies have been reluctant to put too much of their best content on the Internet for too little money. None want to be left behind as the Web merges with television. But they are also wary of encouraging a shift to Web-based viewing, which could lead consumers to cut off cable and satellite subscriptions. 
 
 For instance, Hulu LLC, owned by three media companies including Wall Street Journal parent News Corp., announced in June that it would make its Internet versions of new TV shows available on TVs and other devices—but only for subscribers who pay $10 a month. 
 
 Media companies will pull in more than $30 billion in 2010 from their cut of monthly TV bills, according to estimates from SNL Kagan. 
 
 Amazon has said it would like to launch its new service in time for the holiday season, one person with knowledge of the proposal said. 
 
 Executives for two media companies described Amazon deals as possibilities. 
 
 But it is possible the subscription service could be delayed or shelved if not enough companies sign on, these people and others said. 
 
 An Amazon spokesman said he couldn't "speculate about the future." Spokespeople for NBC Universal, News Corp., Viacom and Time Warner declined to comment. 
 
 Amazon could face an uphill battle matching Netflix. Some people familiar with the matter said Amazon executives had initially balked at what it would cost to license movies at rates paid by Netflix. The DVD-by-mail pioneer has been increasing its spending to secure programming for its Web-based service. 
 
 Netflix recently committed about $200 million a year for movies on cable channel Epix, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Epix is owned by three Hollywood studios. 
 
 Netflix has found a growing niche with online streaming. More than 61% of its 15 million subscribers watched for at least 15 minutes in the second quarter, up from 37% a year earlier, the company said in July. 
 
 Amazon, which began as an online retailer of physical media such as books and DVDs, is trying to shift those businesses to digital to keep up with shifting consumer habits. It has had most success with digital books, where its Kindle e-book reader helped to create a market for e-books by making it easy to buy and read them away from a computer. 
 
 Amazon brings some advantages to the television fight. In at least one version of its proposal, subscriptions could be bundled for no additional charge with its existing Amazon Prime service—immediately giving the service millions of built-in subscribers. Prime offers members cheaper shipping rates for many products in exchange for $79 a year. 
 
 Amazon's existing video-purchase and rental service, meanwhile, is already built into scores of devices. And the company's role as a major retailer of physical DVDs also could give it leverage to wrangle digital-licensing deals. 
 
 —Ethan Smith contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
– A service billed as a Netflix for books is calling it quits after failing to attract enough voracious readers willing to pay $9.95 a month for access to 1 million books. Oyster, which launched in 2013, announced in a blog post that it's going to "sunset" the service over the next few months, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company says it believes "more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade," but it feels "this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for e-books." Those new opportunities will apparently be at Google, which has hired Oyster's CEO, co-founders, and other team members for Google Play Books, reports Re/code. Sources say Google has paid off Oyster investors in what Re/code dubs an "acqhire." Where did it go wrong for Oyster? Consumers stayed away "because binge-reading is more difficult than binge-watching movies," and it didn't help that the service couldn't be accessed on Amazon's Kindle readers, writes Steven Musil at CNET. The company ended up in direct competition with Amazon after it added e-book sales to its subscription service, he notes. People seeking an all-you-can-read service still have the option of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service (which was introduced the year after Oyster made its debut) or, as this columnist notes, libraries.