Oyster & Spritz Team Up to Take Speed Reading Mainstream

Last week ebook subscription service Oyster announced a new partnership with Spritz, a startup focused on making reading faster and more effective. On Thursday Oyster created the first platform on which the public can read a full-length, in-copyright book using Spritz's speed-reading technology. RosettaBook's popular The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is available here, and the 432-page book can, theoretically, be completed in less than two hours.

The new partnership grew out of an assumption that demand for speedy reads would increase, says Oyster co-founder Andrew Brown. "I was excited to hear about Spritz when they launched a few weeks ago and I was surprised by how effective it was. My first thought was that I'd love to try reading a book using the technology. I thought others probably had the same thought, so we decided to integrate it with one of the most popular books on Oyster."

Though the partnership is still in its infancy, Brown and team have high hopes for future collaborations with Spritz. "We're excited to see the reaction to reading a book this way. We're both focused on innovation in reading, and are looking forward to exploring other opportunities to work together in the future."

Oyster is mindful of user feedback, which it gathers regularly from social media and email. If Oyster finds that readers are receptive to this type of platform, we may see the subscription company expand its site to include more choices for how readers consume books, not just new titles.

At the moment, though, the Oyster and Spritz collaboration seems to be an attempt to garner greater visibility for both brands.