Fifteen thousand titles and growing—
Amazon announced today that it will be adding additional streaming content for its Amazon Prime members. The $79 per year service includes free two-day shipping on most of Amazon’s products in addition to free streaming movies, television shows, and Kindle book downloads.
The new content
The 2,000 new streaming titles are a result of deals signed with MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, and VH1. Amazon currently has streaming movies and television shows from CBS, Fox, Disney, ABC, PBS, NBC, Sony, and Warner Bros. bringing Amazon’s total streaming library to over 15,000 titles.
Cheaper than Netflix
A monthly streaming account from Netflix is currently $7.99 per month. The Amazon Prime membership is $79 per year, which breaks down to only $6.58 per month. But in addition to the streaming content, the added value of free two-day shipping, free Kindle downloads, and thousands of television shows makes Amazon’s deal a good one.
Streaming is popular
DVD rentals has had its spot in the sun for many years but the trend towards streaming content is picking up as consumers see the benefits of streaming over physical DVDs—content can be instantaneously watched on demand, there are no return mailing envelopes, and streaming content can also be viewed on other devices such as phones and computers.
Amazon’s growing media empire
Amazon’s humble beginnings started as a discount online bookstore. From here it evolved into a discount online store. It now has ventured into producing electronics such as eReaders and most recently, tablet computers.
But the untold story is how Amazon is flying under the radar in its streaming content business. The value of the Amazon Prime product is good but it remains in relative obscurity when compared to the likes of Netflix.
However, with hundreds of millions of online customers and Amazon’s extensive marketing machine, this situation is sure to change quickly.
Via Amazon
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Written by: Frank Ling on Wednesday, February 08, 2012 - 2:15 PM
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