July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon has once again picked up the leftovers from Netflix by adding a ton of Viacom TV show series to its Amazon Prime instant video service, the company announced today.

The move comes after Netflix recently decided not to renew its licensing contract with Viacom, thus ridding its library of lots of children’s favorites like Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, and more — something that a lot of parent took issue with because those shows are beloved by their children. But now many of those disgruntled Netflix customers/parents may be converted to Amazon Prime customers — especially if those same parents are already used to shopping on Amazon.

“Kids’ shows are one of the most watched TV genres on Prime Instant Video,” said Amazon VP of digital video and music Bill Carr in a statement. “And this expanded deal will now bring customers the largest subscription selection of Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. TV shows online, anywhere.”

The licensing deal with Viacom also includes shows from the media companies’ cable channels MTV and Comedy Central, such as Key & Peele, Workaholics, Awkward, and Teen Mom 2.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has swooped in to grab Netflix’s left over video deals. The company has also grabbed deals with Discovery’s cable channels (Discovery Channel, Science, Animal Planet, etc.) and an exclusive deal with PBS to show Downton Abbey.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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In its quest to become a formidable streaming video service, Amazon is pushing ahead on production of five original TV shows, the company announced today.

Back in April, Amazon released pilots for 14 original shows it had commissioned, which were a mix of comedies and children’s programming. The company allowed anyone to view the shows as well as rate them. Initially, it seemed that most of those shows were hits, with pilot episodes accounting for eight of the top 10 most watched videos on its Prime Instant Video streaming service and obtaining 4- to 5- (out-of-5) star ratings among customers.

Based on the overall feedback, Amazon has ordered an entire series of political comedy starring John Goodman in Alpha House, Silicon Valley startup comedy Betas, robot-filled kids show Annebots, animated series Creative Galaxy, and children’s show Tumbleaf.

And while we won’t know if any of these new shows are actually good, Amazon’s process of letting consumers view the pilots did prevent at least one series from ever seeing the light of day. The made-for-TV adaptation of hit movie Zombieland was nearly universally reviled by fans, causing Amazon to pass on it. Other pilots that didn’t get picked up include Dark Minions, Onion News Network, Supanatural, Those Who Can’t, Positively Ozitively, Sara Solves It, and Teeny Tiny Dogs.

As for the approved list of shows, Amazon plans to produce 12 episodes of Alpha House first with a tentative debut in November.

Image via Amazon

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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If you’re a fan of original TV shows that are exclusively available online, you had quite a bit to watch over the weekend, and according to Amazon you really liked what you saw, too.

Amazon released all 14 of the pilots for its new lineup of original programing this past Friday, including Betas, Alpha House, Onion News Empire, and the new made-for-TV Zombieland. Without indicating which were the clear hits, the company said the pilot episodes accounted for 8 of the top 10 most watched videos on its Prime Instant Video streaming service, with 80 percent of reviews on the pilots gaining a 4 to 5 (of 5) star ratings among customers.

You don’t have to be a Amazon Prime member (which costs $79 annually) to watch the programs, which may have contributed to the high viewing numbers. Anyone who watches the pilots can also provide a rating to help the company decide whether to order an entire season of the show. Its a good move because this may entice people to start subscribing to Amazon Prime, which in turn offers Amazon customers “free shipping” on tons of items. That’s in addition to the perk of watching a library of free TV series and movies. Ultimately, if this can increase Prime memberships and make Amazon more money, we could start seeing more original programming from the company.

Indirectly, Amazon’s new pilots are also an indirect challenge to other streaming video sites Netflix, which also debuted its second big original series Hemlock Grove this past weekend. Many are speculating that Hemlock Grove isn’t nearly as strong as the company’s First series House of Cards, and we’ve yet to hear anything from Netflix about viewing stats on it. But, one thing is certain though: we’re entering a new age of TV programming that’s being funding through the subscription based model of online video companies. And for the most part, people are responding to it.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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If you’ve ever sat up at 3 am with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, whining that there is “nothing good on TV,” soon you will have no grounds for complaint.

Amazon is giving you the power to decide what TV shows are made. The company has posted pilots for six kids shows and eight sitcoms, prompting the audience to choose which should become full-fledged original series on Amazon Instant Prime Video.

The kids selection includes shows about a kid scientist, magical adventures in Oz, and the journeys of Fix the fox. For adults, there is Zombieland (which is based on the hit movie), an animated sci-fi option called Dark Minions. Alpha House was written by Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau about four senators, and Betas follows four startup kids searching for success in Silicon Valley.

TV, as we know it, is changing. TV shows are traditionally produced by an elite cabal of Hollywood executives and distrbuted through networks and cable providers. However, as people consume more and more of their content online, power is shifting and Internet companies are playing a bigger role in how we satisfy our cravings for entertainment, as well as what we watch.

Amazon Instant Prime Video has more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes that you can instantly stream across multiple devices. Over the past couple years, Amazon has kept busy signing licensing agreements with networks like A&E and NBC in an effort to catch up to competitors Netflix and Hulu. However, Netflix and Hulu both produce original content, which has proven a necessity for grabbing and holding onto a large subscriber base. Not wanting to be left in the dust, Amazon announced in May 2012 that it would develop its own lineup of original children’s shows and sitcoms.

Now the audience gets to decide. This approach is a reversal from how TV shows are usually made. In the past, it is more of a guessing game based on intuition, experience, and ratings. Shows get made and you hope people watch them. In this case, people are expressing their interest ahead of time.

However, for Amazon, this play is about more than staying competitive with Netflix and Hulu. Amazon has a range of other services, beyond entertainment. The video streaming service is one of the perks offered to people who sign up for Amazon Prime, a $79 per year premium membership, and original programming is part of the company’s strategy to boost prime memberships, which drive more business to its online retail store.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Updated to note Amazon Prime original pilots availability.

The latest original program to get a greenlight by Amazon is a TV show based on hit movie Zombieland, the company announced today.

The announcement confirms earlier rumors that the show was being developed for Amazon. The show will initially get a pilot episode, and fans will have an opportunity to vote on whether it gets a full season. The pilot will be available to all Amazon customers (even those that aren’t subscribed to Prime) when it launches.

The show itself is being billed as a comedy, the seventh that Amazon has already given approval to under its Amazon Studios arm. The company has a total of 12 original show pilots in production, including six children shows and four other comedies.

The move is part of Amazon’s effort to make its Prime Instant Video service a main competitor to Hulu Plus and streaming video leader Netflix — both of which are producing their own slates of original programming.

Here’s the official description of the show from Amazon:

Zombieland is based on the hit Columbia Pictures movie of the same name, and finds four survivors outwitting zombies and searching for a place to call home. The Zombieland pilot comes from the feature film’s original creative team, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, The Joe Schmo Show), and producer Gavin Polone (Gilmore Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) is directing the pilot. The part of Tallahassee will be played by Kirk Ward (The Island), Maiara Walsh (Desperate Housewives, Switched at Birth) is cast as Wichita, Tyler Ross (Milkshake) will play Columbus, and Izabela Vidovic has the role of Little Rock.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon announced announced a new licensing deal today with Scripps Network that will bring a slew of cable TV show episodes to its library of content for its Prime streaming service.

Scripps owns several cable TV networks that many people may view as staples of their channel lineup, such as Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, and the DYI Network. And as part of its deal with Amazon, old seasons of popular shows will now be available for free to Prime members. Some of the new content includes Rachael Ray’s Week in a Day; Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations; Cupcake Wars; Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives; House Hunters, Man v. Food, and Ghost Adventures. Presumably, current episodes of Scripps-owned shows will also be available for purchase via Amazon’s website.

The new Prime content is just the latest in a long string of licensing deals Amazon has recently forged to make its video service more competitive with Netflix and Hulu, as well as make its $79 per year Prime memberships more appealing to customers. This year alone, Amazon has signed deals to bring in TV content from A&E Networks (A&E, History Channel, Bio, Lifetime), an exclusive agreement to stream CBS TV miniseries Under The Dome, an exclusive to stream Downton Abbey, and approved production on a handful of original comedy and children’s series. And Tuesday, the company also announced an exclusive deal to stream FX series Justified on Prime.

Are you excited about any of the new content heading to Prime? Let us know in the comment section below.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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One giant asset that Amazon has over other rival streaming video services is IMDb, which the company purchased way back in 2008. And now, it’s actually using it to make its Prime Instant Video service more attractive.

Now any movie that’s available for free on Amazon Prime via IMDb’s iOS app will now feature a link to watch that movie on Amazon’s Instant Video iOS app. I tested this on my iPad and watched Thor using the link to Amazon Instant. If you don’t have the Instant Videos app on your tablet or smartphone, you’ll just get a prompt telling you to download it from the app store.

One thing you can’t really do is pull up specific episodes of television shows that are available on Prime Instant Video for free. Researching TV shows while I’m watching them is probably the main reason I consult IMDB these days, and it’s a bit surprising that Amazon didn’t bother building this functionality into the iOS app update. (Alternately, I could see myself rewatching more older episodes of TV shows, too.)

The move could end up pushing more people to Amazon Prime instead of Netflix, or potentially even net Amazon a few more memberships. It’s a bit curious that the company hasn’t pushed out similar links on the website — although you can click through to “purchase” the movie/show.

Via TNW

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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In its latest effort to differentiate its streaming video service from competitors, Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service will be getting a hot new TV show while it currently airs on broadcast television, the company announced today.

The move is a first for the streaming service, which like its competitor Netflix usually only gains access to TV show seasons a year after they’ve gone off air. And while Hulu currently has current TV series as a result of its many licensing agreement with TV networks, this show won’t contain commercial interruptions.

The show itself is call Under The Dome, a 13-episode adaptation of a Stephen King novel that’s being produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Here’s the official synopsis from Amazon: “Under the Dome tells the story of a small New England town that is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an enormous transparent dome.” (Trailer embedded below.)

The series’ first episode should air June 24 and become available to Amazon Prime members June 28. Future episodes should pop online about three days after their TV broadcast premiere.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon Studios, the arm of online retail giant Amazon responsible for creating original programming, has approved production on five new children’s shows.

The move is part of Amazon’s effort to make its Prime Instant Video service a main competitor to Hulu Plus and streaming video leader Netflix — both of which are producing their own slates of original shows. Amazon previously approved production on four original shows back in June.

But unlike the other streaming services, Amazon sees an opportunity to grab consumer attention through original kids shows, which aren’t top priority for Netflix or Hulu.

Check out a description of the programs below, and let us know if you think your own little monsters would watch these shows in the comment section.

Children’s pilots include:

Creative Galaxy

Creative Galaxy is an animated interactive art adventure series, designed to inspire kids’ creative thinking through crafts, story, music, and dance. The series was created by Angela Santomero, creator of Super Why!, the Emmy-nominated literacy series, Blue’s Clues, and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

Oz Adventures

In this innovative problem solving series, Dot, Dorothy’s daughter, goes off to Oz everyday with the children of the beloved characters from L. Frank Baum’s classic book, The Wizard of Oz. In each episode, the yellow brick road leads Dot to a new magical location where she solves problems alongside her Oz friends.

Teeny Tiny Dogs

Produced by The Jim Henson Company (Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train) and created by Howard Baker (Rugrats), Teeny Tiny Dogs follows Butch, Butterfly, Dinky, and Polly as they help one another navigate the big world despite their teeny, tiny size. This series promotes happiness through friendship, learning, growing, and developing a strong sense of self as seen through the eyes of canine friends.

Tumbleaf

Tumbleaf was created by Drew Hodges and Bix Pix Studios, an award-winning stop motion studio. The series, aimed at preschoolers, is set in a whimsical land where a small blue fox named Fig plays each day and discovers adventure, friendship, and love around every bend in the path. Children will be enriched by narratives that promote play through exploration and cognitive reasoning.

The Untitled J.J. Johnson Project

This project revolves around Anne, a young scientist, who creates three robot helpers to assist her scientific experiments in the back of her dad’s junkyard. This science-based series from creator J.J. Johnson (Dino Dan, This is Emily Yeung) aims to introduce kids to science and technology in a fun, new way.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Online retail giant Amazon is introducing its popular Prime membership program to Canadian consumers, it announced today — but it’s without numerous perks that make this service so appealing.

The move means that Canadian customers that purchase the $79 (CAD) annual subscription will have access to “free” two-day shipping on thousands of items sold by Amazon or through one of its fulfillment merchants. Prime membership also offers a one-day shipping rate of $3.99 and a standard shipping fee for all packages shipped to rural areas.

But unlike U.S. members, Canadian members won’t have access to some of the other perks that go along with the Prime service. That means no access to the library of free streaming movies on Prime Instant Video, and no access to the Kindle library lending program.

I’d imagine this has something to do with the separate licensing deals Amazon would need to cut with media companies to offer a Canadian Prime Video service. Also, it’s likely that Amazon wants to master its streaming video service domestically before it decides to expand into new markets.

Still, the product shipping discounts offered by Prime membership is still enough to carry the service on its own in Canada.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon has signed a licensing agreement with A&E Networks that will make TV shows from A&E, Bio, History, and Lifetime channels available to watch on Prime Instant Video, the company announced today.

Amazon claims the Prime Instant Video service now has more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes that you can stream instantly on a variety of devices. That’s a far cry from the amount of content provided by its biggest competitor, Netflix, but at least it’s getting better.

“In a year we have more than doubled the Prime Instant Video selection for our Prime members,” said Brad Beale, the director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, in a statement. “We remain focused on adding TV episodes and movies to Prime Instant Video that we think our customers will enjoy. A&E Networks has some of the most popular shows on television, and we know our customers will love streaming the A+E content with Prime Instant Video.”

Today’s deal will bring some of the highest rated television shows from A&E’s networks to Prime, including hits like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and Dance Moms.

Last year, Amazon signed quite a few deals to make Prime’s library of movies and TV shows larger. These include a deal with Epix to get The Hunger Games and The Avengers and a deal with NBC to have shows such as Parks and Recreation, Friday Night Lights, and Battlestar Galactica.

Pawn Stars via History Channel

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Like other streaming video services, Amazon Studios is producing its own slate of original TV shows that will play exclusively on the company’s Prime Instant Video service.

However, unlike the offerings from both Hulu and Netflix, Amazon is actually asking its audience to pick the shows that it likes the most before it decides to produce a full season of the show.

The company is producing six shows initially, which will all get at least a pilot episode that Amazon Prime members will be able to watch for free. Based on feedback on those pilot episodes, the company will determine which shows go forward.

It’s actually a pretty good way to determine a hit, and much better than the traditional method of producing a bunch of high quality content every season and seeing what gets the best reaction out of an audience.

Check out a description for each of the six shows, (all comedies) below, and let us know your thoughts in the comment section:

Alpha House – Alpha House was written by Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury, Tanner ’88). Alpha House follows four senators who live together in a rented house in Washington DC.

Browsers – Written by 12-time Emmy-winning comedy writer David Javerbaum (The Daily Show) and to be directed by Don Scardino (30 Rock), Browsers is a musical comedy set in contemporary Manhattan that follows four young people as they start their first jobs at a news website.

Dark Minions – Written by Big Bang Theory co-stars Kevin Sussman and John Ross Bowie, Dark Minions is an animated workplace series about two slackers just trying to make a paycheck working an intergalactic warship. The pilot will be produced by Principato-Young (Reno 911).

The Onion Presents: The News – The Onion Presents: The News is a smart, fast-paced scripted comedy set behind the scenes of The Onion News Network that shows just how far journalists will go to stay at the top of their game. The Onion Presents: The News is from The Onion’s Will Graham & Dan Mirk (The Onion News Network, The Onion Sportsdome).

Supanatural – Supanatural is an animated comedy series about two outspoken divas who are humanity’s last line of defense against the supernatural, when they’re not working at the mall. The series, written by Lily Sparks, Price Peterson and Ryan Sandoval, will be produced by Jason Micallef (Butter) and Kristen Schaal (The Daily Show).

Those Who Can’t – Written by Andrew Orvedahl, Adam Cayton-Holland and Benjamin Roy (Grawlix), who were discovered through Amazon Studios online open door process, Those Who Can’t is a comedy about three juvenile, misfit teachers who are just as immature, if not more so, than the students they teach.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Months after the debut of its iPad app, Amazon has now released a new version of its Prime Instant Video iOS app that’s been optimized to play on the iPhone.

The app itself serves up hundreds of videos available within Amazon Prime’s streaming video library as well as any rented or purchased videos from Amazon. You can also download those movies or TV shows to watch when you don’t have an Internet connection. It also has plenty of options to manage your personal video watchlist.

What you can’t do with the app is purchase or rent non-Prime videos. To do that you’ll need to visit Amazon’s website, make the purchase, and then head back into the app. Part of this is probably due to Apple’s 30 percent commission fee on all purchases made through an iOS app. Amazon understandably doesn’t want to give Apple a cut of its digital video sales.

The other thing you can’t do with the Amazon Prime Instant Video app is enable the Airplay feature on Apple TV. Basically, that means you cannot watch Amazon Prime videos on your television when playing them from your iPhone. That’s a huge letdown, because it really demonstrates how closed Apple really is when it comes to direct competitors — especially since Apple doesn’t have its own unlimited streaming video subscription service.

The app is available today for free in the App Store, but to access the Prime Instant Video library, you’ll need to have an Amazon Prime membership.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon could be losing up to $1 billion per year on its streaming video service Amazon Prime, according to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who commented during an interview with Dow Jones editors in New York yesterday.

Hastings’ assumption is based on content licensing deals that Amazon earlier this year after a bidding war with Netflix. Amazon is likely splitting those licensing costs between its domestic Prime service and its international streaming service LoveFlim, he said. And based on financial information from Netflix’s last quarterly earnings report, those number could be sound.

Amazon does want to compete with Netflix, which is evident now that Prime has a comparable content library selection. To do so it’ll need to spend the kind of money that Netflix does on licensing . And, Netflix estimates that it will spend $2.1 billion for content licensing over the next year, according to its last quarterly earnings report.

It’s hard to say if Amazon is actually losing that much money on its streaming deals. because the company could be making up for it in other ways. Amazon’s $79 annual Prime membership subscription gives its customers “free” 2-day shipping on items sold by Amazon and its partners, the free Prime Video service, and Kindle ebook lending. And Amazon has previously said that people are more likely to use Amazon’s online store (and use it more often) when they’re a prime member — meaning that Amazon could take a $1 billion loss on its streaming video service if its online sales are up by at least that amount.

Amazon is using a similar strategy for its line of Kindle e-readers and tablets. Kindles are sold at cost (or possibly even at a slight loss), while Amazon makes its money from digital media sales. Of course, since Amazon doesn’t detail any of this information in its own quarterly earnings, we don’t know how well this strategy is working.

But back to Hastings, the point I believe he was trying to make was that running a profitable streaming video service is very difficult. And at the same time, Hastings wants to highlight the fact that Netflix seems to be doing it very well. Allow me to break it down a little further though.

Hastings insists that Hulu and Amazon Prime are serious competitors, but doesn’t deny the ridiculously huge gap between those rival services’ total subscribers and Netflix’s total subscribers. (To give you some perspective, Netflix has 25 million subscribers in the U.S., and 30 million globally. By comparison, Hulu Plus has over 2 million paying subscribers. Amazon Prime memberships just recently started offering a monthly subscription plan, but I’m assuming Prime has no where near as many as Netflix.)

He and others at the company also highlight data usage statistics, which show Netflix as the clear leader of streaming video. Last week, for instance, broadband infrastructure analysis group Sandvine released a report that showed that Netflix accounted for 33 percent of peak downstream traffic in North America — compared to Amazon Prime (1.8 percent), Hulu (1.4 percent), and HBO Go (0.5 percent). Also, Hulu’s share includes both the free and paid traffic, and Amazon’s share includes free Prime videos as well as digital purchases and rentals. So yeah, Netflix is a beast.

Right now its even more important for Hastings to tout these kinds of numbers, too. The streaming video service is currently defending itself from billionaire financier Carl Icahn, who recently too a 10 percent stake in the company. Icahn’s investment is based on the idea that Netflix is hitting a roadblock in terms of how much more value it can provide shareholders on its own, and would like to sell the streaming service to a larger company (like Microsoft).

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Updated at 11:37 am PT with clarification about this being a “test.”

E-commerce giant Amazon is quietly testing an $8 monthly option for its Prime program, which gives customers access to free 2-day shipping, monthly Kindle rentals, and a decent selection of unlimited streaming video.

Amazon previously only offered Prime for $79 a year, which means people concerned about that up-front pricing could try out Prime for several months to see if they get their money’s worth with the program. This new pricing option is also incredibly attractive for the holiday season, when you might want Prime benefits for just a few months.

Additionally, the change signals Amazon’s intention to be a bigger player in streaming media. The $8-a-month pricing closely resembles Netflix and Hulu Plus’ plans, but by all accounts, it offers a less robust movie and TV selection. Still, Amazon is banking on the addition of free 2-day shipping and Kindle rentals to the video streaming package to make up for its paltry options.

One caveat for those attracted to the new pricing: The $8 monthly fee ends up costing about $96 total over the course of a year. So it’s still cheaper overall to purchase a $79 yearly subscription to Prime if you feel like you get a lot of value out of the program.

Top photo: Amazon

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn’t one to pull punches when talking about competition from other streaming video services. Such was the case when Hastings was recently asked about Amazon Prime Instant video service.

“In the U.S., our content budget is about three times [Amazon's], and we’ve got about three times more content. And what our customers tell us is they want Netflix to have more content, not to have two-thirds less at a lower price,” Hastings said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

“[Amazon has its Prime membership service] and it’s really about low-cost shipping, but why is video in there? It’s kind of a confusing mess,” he added.

Hastings also elaborates on how much better Netflix’s video recommendation algorithms are compared to Amazon Prime because the company focuses solely on building a video service, unlike Amazon. In my experience, I’ve found that the best recommendation tool for watching Amazon Prime is when I’m searching for something I’ve discovered Netflix doesn’t have available.

In addition to Netflix recommendations, the service is also superior to Prime in plenty of other ways, including its user interface, video playback, and video queue management. Obviously, Netflix has the better service. That much can hardly be denied — even if Amazon manages to make its content library nearly identical to Netflix.

But the one thing that Netflix should fear is Amazon’s ability to withstand years of competition at a loss, while slowly building its Prime Instant video service into a worthy rival.

In the interview, Hastings rhetorically asks what “video” is doing in Amazon’s Prime Membership service, but I think he’s well aware.

Amazon is using streaming video to lure more people to its digital media stores and 2-day “free” shipping discounts on physical products, (which in turn drives consumers to spend more money buying things on Amazon.) And as Hastings points out, Netflix’s business is wholly tied into streaming and DVD subscriptions, which doesn’t exactly represent a diverse business model for generating revenue. Amazon doesn’t have that problem, and as such, can afford to wait it out.

This doesn’t mean Netflix is destined for failure. As VentureBeat previously pointed out, the company is concentrating on growing the business in two very crucial ways: developing HBO-quality original TV content and aggressively pursuing international expansion — which Hastings reiterates in his interview with the WSJ.

That said, not fearing Amazon Prime Video would just be foolish, no matter how much better Netflix currently is.

Photo via Netflix

Amazon is now shipping more items through its two-day “free” Prime service than its Super Saver shipping for the first time ever, the company announced today.

Amazon first launched its Prime membership service back in 2005 as part of its strategy to lower the cost of shipping on a variety of items in exchange for a $79 annual fee. The company now offers its Prime two-day shipping on over 15 million items. (As usual, Amazon isn’t offering up any numbers on its total Prime subscribers.)

By contrast, Amazon’s “Super Saver Shipping” requires non-Prime members to spend at least $25 on any single customer order to render the shipping charges free. The company can do this because the $25 price per order allows them to conserve on overall shipping costs, much in the same way it can do with its Prime memberships.

The move is significant: It shows that not only is Amazon signing up a sufficient number of Prime memberships, but those Prime members are also spending plenty of money with Amazon — perhaps instead of other retail chains both online and off.

Amazon is also giving people plenty of incentive to gain Prime membership, as it now offers a variety of movies and TV shows to watch via its Prime Instant Video service, which is available on Roku, Xbox, PS3, iPad, and, of course, the web.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon and NBC have been getting down to business, and the fruits of their labors are more instant video offerings for Amazon Prime customers.

In case you’ve still got cable or something (hah! you oldster), Amazon Prime’s Instant Video service is the company’s Hulu/Netflix competitor. It serves slews of movies and TV shows to paying customers, who also get e-book and free shipping perks along with discounts on many products.

As of today, NBC shows such as like Parks and Recreation, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica become part of the Prime Instant Video lineup.

“We continue to invest heavily in our content selection for Prime members and have now reached over 22,000 movies and TV episodes available instantly with unlimited streaming,” said Amazon digital video content acquisition director Brad Beale in a statement on the news.

“We are excited to be working with NBCUniversal to add their award-winning lineup of TV shows such as Parks and Recreation and Friday Night Lights to Prime Instant Video.”

Amazon’s total Instant Video library includes 120,000 titles available for rental or purchase. Prime members, who pay a flat $80 annual fee for Prime membership, are able to view more than 22,000 movies and TV episodes from the overall Instant Video library at no additional charge.

Amazon has been doing hella deals to bring more videos to Prime in particular. Back in February, the company signed on with MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and a few others to get their popular shows onto the online video service. Discovery Channel and Animal Planet got on board the following month, with MGM and Warner Bros. following suit in June and July, respectively.

And earlier this month, Amazon launched a new iPad app for Instant Video gratification that media correspondent Tom Cheredar said would “eat [Netflix's] lunch.”

Giant online auction site eBay has launched a new same-day shipping service called ‘eBay Now,’ according to invitations the company sent out this morning.

The service, which is currently in beta and only available in San Francisco, will allow shoppers to gain same-day shipping on goods sold by local retailers. The purchase order must be at least $25, and users can only shop via the official iOS app at the moment. Orders should arrive within an hour, according to the company’s beta invitation.

The company is hoping to jump-start the service with a promotional deal that gives users $15 off their first purchase as well as free shipping on the first three orders. After that eBay will charge $5 for shipping during the beta, which it makes a point of saying.

The new service puts eBay in direct competition with Amazon, which already offers same-day shipping on products sold to customers in select big cities, including Las Vegas, New York City, Seattle, and Boston. For Amazon Prime members, the same-day service costs $5.99 per item (excluding the annual $79 for Prime membership) — not a bad deal for super fast shipping, but not overly great either.

VentureBeat Guest columnist Rocky Agrawal first spotted the eBay Now invites (which TechCrunch was the first to pick up on) earlier today. He’s previously written about how Amazon has a great opportunity to become a friend to small businesses, despite the retail company’s shaky history with local vendors. It seems that eBay would agree, and plans to do something about it via ‘eBay Now’.

Update: Be sure to read Rocky’s hands-on evaluation of the service.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Online retail giant Amazon released an iPad app today that provides streaming access to its library of Prime Instant Video movies and TV shows.

The Prime Instant Video is a complimentary video service offered to members of Amazon Prime, the $79 per year service that provides free two-day shipping to tons of products sold by Amazon. The new Instant Video iPad App represents one of the first big steps by the company to directly compete with streaming video service leader Netflix, which currently has 24 million domestic subscribers.

Netflix has long predicted that Amazon would break the Prime Instant Video service off into a separate service, along with its own monthly subscription fee. Amazon, however, is taking a different route that should make Netflix investors nervous, since the service could eventually steal away Netflix subscribers.

The new Instant Video app basically functions like Netflix’s iPad app in the sense that subscribers can watch streaming videos, add videos to a queue (or Watchlist) for later, Whispersync (bookmarking the last moment you watched of a particular video), and more.

In terms of recommendations for what to watch, Amazon only gives you a small number to choose from. You’re better off visiting Amazon’s website for the full selection, where you can then add titles to your Watchlist. I assume this won’t change because Amazon wants its Prime users to buy products via the website, which might happen while sifting for something to watch.

Yet, Amazon’s iPad app goes a step further than Netflix by providing streaming access to movie and TV shows you’ve purchased or rented through Amazon’s online store. You also have the option to download those video purchases directly to your iPad for viewing offline. For now, Netflix is against the idea of providing movie rentals of new releases through its streaming service.

Don’t get me wrong, Netflix still has a far better streaming service, but Amazon is slowly catching up by adding new features and consistently increasing its content library.

Ex-Yahoo CEO and resume-fudger Scott Thompson has been selected by retail organization ShopRunner to lead its efforts to take on Amazon.

Thompson attracted a lot of attention when he moved from PayPal to being Yahoo’s CEO. But just a few months after he was hired to replace previous CEO Carol Bartz, Thompson resigned for overstating the credentials on his resume in SEC documents. Now, former Googler Marissa Mayer has been tapped to lead Yahoo and help the ailing tech company find its way back to relevance.

The new gig at ShopRunner will be a considerable step down for Thompson. ShopRunner makes it possible to get 2-day free shipping from many major retailers, including Toys R Us, Petsmart, GNC, American Eagle, and more, but it charges members $79 a year. It’s essentially a large-scale counter to Amazon Prime, which gives Amazon members free 2-day shipping and free streaming videos for $79 a year.

Thompson believes his time at PayPal has prepared him for ShopRunner:

“Joining ShopRunner is a tremendous opportunity to build on the strong foundation that the company has already established,” he said in a statement. “While PayPal and ShopRunner are fundamentally different businesses, there are similarities in each of their success. Both companies are focused on building the broadest network of satisfied merchants by providing the value that creates a large and loyal customer community, creating a virtuous circle.”

Scott Thompson photo: Yahoo/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Say what you will about Amazon’s complimentary Prime streaming video library, but at least its selection is consistently growing.

Amazon has forged a new licensing agreement with Warner Bros. to bring several of the entertainment company’s television shows to its Prime service, Amazon announced today.

The agreement will give Amazon Prime Members free streaming access to shows like Dark Blue, Alcatraz, The Whole Truth, and more. Also, both Fringe and The West Wing will exclusively play through Amazon Prime Instant for at least the summer, according to the company.

I’ve complained in the past that Amazon Prime keeps adding content to its library but does little in the way of actually enticing people to use the service. Well, it’s nice to see this is finally changing. Not only has Amazon added access to its Prime video streaming through gaming consoles like Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, but it’s also finally added a queue feature, as VentureBeat previously reported.

The company still treats each episode in a TV series as a unique video and claims to now have over 18,000 videos available to its Prime members. If it counted each TV series as one video, however, that number would be much smaller.

Are you excited about watching Warner Bros. TV shows on Prime? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon signed new licensing agreement with MGM Studios that will bring hundreds of movies and TV shows to its Prime streaming video service, the company announced today.

Amazon Prime Members, the $79 annual service offering access to free shipping on tons of items sold through Amazon as well as access to the Prime Instant service, will now be able to watch movies like The Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Wolves, Rain Man and The Terminator, as well as TV series like Stargate.

If you feel like these content licensing announcements from Amazon are starting to blur together, then you’re certainly not alone. Last month, the company added a ton of movies and TV shows from Paramount’s library of content. Before that it signed new TV licensing agreements with Discovery Channel and Viacom. But despite the influx of fresh content, Amazon has moved at a snail’s pace to entice its Prime Members to actually use the instant video service instead of competitors like Netflix.

Probably the biggest complaint I had with Amazon Prime was the lack of a queue, or list of movies and TV shows that you’ve put aside to watch at a later time. Unbeknownst to myself and probably the majority of Prime users, Amazon actually just rolled out a “Watch List” feature that accomplishes this task.

Finding Prime videos on Amazon is also not the easiest task, especially not compared to Netflix. Navigating to a list of Prime-only videos on the website is possible, but confusing. This kind of makes sense since Amazon is simply using the free videos as a lure to get its customers to sign up for the Prime Membership. The company probably benefits from you having to search around for the movie or TV show you’d like to watch, it may even result in you making a purchase that you otherwise wouldn’t have made. For this reason alone, it’s likely that we’ll never see a real Amazon Prime video standalone service.

As for navigating to Prime-only videos on other devices, I will say the experience is much easier using a Roku. I expect the same is probably true on other set-top devices like the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The other thing Amazon Prime video lacks is a clearly identifiable recommendation system. You do get some recommended videos on the website currently, but they are mixed in with your past purchase history and items that are only available for sale.

Again, these shortcomings are because Amazon Prime video exists to compliment the overall Prime Membership, which in turn, is set up to drive more sales. And as VentureBeat previously reported, the number of Prime Memberships are crucial to the success Amazon’s business strategy.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon will now offer its streaming Instant Video service to Xbox 360 owners via a brand new app that was released today.

The move will make all streaming purchases, rentals, and free Prime videos available through the popular gaming console. It also means the Playstation 3 is no longer the sole game console to feature Amazon’s streaming video offerings.

An Amazon Xbox Live app makes perfect sense for the company. Not only has media usage on the Xbox risen above the console’s main purpose of gaming, but it’s also part of Microsoft’s overall strategy to break into the digital media market. Several other music and video streaming services are already available on the console, such as Comcast’s Xfinity TV, HBO Go, Last.fm, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and many others.

The bottom line is that any company with a streaming video service should be available on the Xbox.

Amazon is passing on its standard promotion to all Xbox owners that aren’t already Amazon Prime Members. The company is giving one month of the service for free, which entitles you to a fair amount of free streaming movies and free shipping on lots of products sold through Amazon.

Now if Amazon would only wise up and start building in some decent user-friendly controls to navigate through that 17,000+ title library of streaming videos and episodes, we’d all be in good shape.

Amazon is hiring some new team members to improve and enhance the Amazon Prime membership package.

Currently, an $80-per-year membership gets you free, fast shipping and some media freebies. But if you’re not a die-hard online shopper or streaming media junkie, $80 annually can seem like a lot.

The new employees will be charged with “Prime Expansion” and dreaming up new benefits for Amazon Prime members, as well as marketing the service and pushing it into new geographical regions.

A full listing of Prime-related job listings at Amazon reveals the company is working on “awesome new business opportunities” for digital subscriptions, launching Prime services in Italy and Spain, working with major studios to improve the site’s Instant Video offerings, and creating new designs to get more members onboard.

As we read in a few of these job descriptions:

“We are going through a period of dramatic evolution, working on new benefits and pairing Prime with some of our top strategic marketing initiatives including Amazon Student and Amazon Mom…

The Prime Expansion team is aggressively driving innovations and architectural designs that will allow the program to be easily expanded to allow Prime customers to enjoy benefits on a growing list of Amazon locales and beyond. Our core team mission is to enable the right Prime programs in new places (on and off Amazon) by designing flexible software architectures that will allow for a rapid expansion of the Prime program everywhere!

The Amazon Prime Expansion team is a great place to grow your career. Our roadmap is bursting with opportunity for engineers to bring their best (and then some), solve intriguing challenges, and tangibly impact the customer experience on and off Amazon Come join our team where fun, smart, passionate engineers challenge and support one another in pursuit of goals that have a huge impact on our customers and the company.

Of course, it’s kind of a given that Amazon would want to improve its current offering of virtual products and services; that’s more or less par for the course. What’s interesting is the timing of this rapid acceleration of Prime offerings.

Prime first launched its instant video service as an incentive for new members back in February 2011. However, one year later, Amazon Prime membership was still much lower than anticipated. As Amazon continues to grow in all its other offerings — from its massive Kindle adoption to its cloud hosting services — Prime can’t be allowed to lag behind.

hat tip: All Things D

Image courtesy of Vladimir Gerasimov, Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Netflix announced today that TEDTalks are being added to its library of streaming content.

TED is a conference that takes place all around the world, known for attracting speakers who give thought-provoking, big-picture speeches about a range of subjects. The motto of the conference is, “Ideas Worth Spreading” and talks run anywhere from three minutes to a half hour, hopefully packed with insight. Netflix is aggregating these talks into two and a half hour segments called TEDTalk Shows, and divvying them up into 14 different categories, such as space, beauty, and sex.

As The Next Web points out, TED is an expensive conference to go to. It can run $7,500 to see the talks in person, and unless you live in Long Beach, Calif., you’re going to pay travel expenses as well. A streaming instant-video subscription with Netflix, on the other hand, costs $7.99 a month. The TEDTalks Shows are available to Netflix customers in the U.S., UK, Canada, Latin America, and Ireland.

The announcement came soon after Amazon announced a new partnership with the Discovery Channel for its own streaming service. Amazon has quickly turned itself into a Netflix competitor, offering streaming content through Prime Instant Video. The model is slightly different from Netflix, as Amazon Prime costs $79 a year for the program which also offers perks within its broader e-commerce website (such as free 2-day shipping). But the company faces similar challenges to Netflix in creating production-studio partnerships.

The secured deal with Discovery boosted Amazon’s total video offerings count to 17,000. Netflix, which is having a harder time keeping partnerships, is still fighting at 13,855 titles, according to Instant Watcher.

Check out the video below. It isn’t actually a TED talk, but was posted on the TED website, and is an example of the awesomeness that is TED:

hat tip The Next Web; Ted image via whiteafrican/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Amazon has inked a licensing deal with Discovery Communications that will bring popular Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet titles to its Prime Instant Video service.

Prime Instant Video is a subset of the company’s video streaming, rental, and download service that allows U.S. subscribers, who pay $79 a year for two-day shipping and other goodies, to stream videos as often they’d like.

Amazon is promising Prime customers all-you-can-stream access to series of popular past shows such as Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, TLC’s Say Yes To The Dress, and Animal Planet’s Whale Wars. Available titles will also include additional Discovery library content and Investigation Discovery, Science, and Military Channel shows and specials.

Amazon has recently added a smattering of television shows and movies from Fox and Viacom to round out its offering and blossom into a full-fledged Netflix competitor. The e-commerce company apparently also has an interest in developing its own original programming.

With the Discovery deal, the Amazon Prime Instant Video library has ballooned to 17,000 titles, the company said. That figure, in theory, makes Amazon’s catalog of titles available for instant streaming larger than Netflix’s, which unofficially offers 13,855 titles, by Instant Watcher’s count. Officially, Netflix doesn’t reveal the size of its catalog.

Photo credit: Discovery Channel

Amazon is buying up real estate in three city blocks in Seattle and plans to build a million-square-foot office tower on each block.

The company signed a purchase-and-sale agreement with the property owners several weeks ago, and that agreement included options to purchase even more property in the future. The Seattle Times says this is the biggest real estate deal Seattle has seen in years. Though the seller declined to disclose the exact terms of the deal, a representative of the real estate group said the deal was “off the charts” and that the facilities were going to be “world-class.”

The company’s growth is undeniable; over the past several years, Amazon has become a mainstream titan of e-commerce, and its cloud services for web hosting are omnipresent in a world populated with apps.

However, the company did post dramatically lower-than-expected profits for Q4 2011. The year-end numbers included a huge 58 percent dip in net income. Still, in terms of revenue, Amazon brought in $17.43 billion in sales, up 35 percent year-over-year, with Amazon S3 growing at a rate of 193 percent year-over-year.

A significant chunk of that revenue can be attributed to sales of the company’s Kindle line of tablets and e-readers. In fact, tablet and e-reader ownership saw enormous increases over the 2011 holiday season, with Kindles selling at a rate of a million each week during at least some of that period.

Also, the company has been heavily promoting its Amazon Prime service, which bundles free and fast shipping for e-commerce customers as well as a slew of premium content in the streaming video category, including shows from Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and other networks.

Image courtesy of leungchopan, Shutterstock

Amazon may have far fewer customers signed up for its Amazon Prime membership than analysts previously estimated.

The Prime membership costs $79 annually for Amazon customers, who in return get free two-day shipping on most items sold through the retail giant. The service is attractive to customers because shipping fees aren’t factored into individual purchases. And while Prime memberships increase the shipping costs for Amazon, research shows that Prime customers are more loyal and make more purchases. (I’ve got a stack of graphic novels that more or less proves that this is true.)

The total number of Prime memberships ranges from 3 million to 5 million since October 2011, according to a Bloomberg report that cites three anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter. If the information is true, that would mean that the company has less than half of the 10 million memberships estimated by some analysts.

Amazon was unavailable for comment about the membership numbers. (However, if the company does respond we’ll be sure to update the post.)

Amazon’s goal over the next 18 months is to increase Prime membership to the 7 – 10 million range, according to the report. One way the company plans to boost membership is though Prime’s commercial-free streaming video service. The company recently signed licensing deals with Fox, NBC, CBS, and Viacom to increase the variety of television shows available, which makes the Prime video service more competitive with Netflix and Hulu. But, Amazon clearly wants to use the streaming video service as a perk to boost Prime membership far more than it wants to compete with other video services — (making a standalone Amazon streaming video service even more unlikely).

Even if Amazon is successful in boosting Prime memberships over the next year, it’s unlikely that it’ll lessen the fears of investors who are concerned about the company’s future revenue growth.

Last month, Amazon reported revenue of $17.4 billion for Q4 2011, which was nearly $1 billion lower than Wall Street’s estimates. Not only that, but the company stayed irritatingly silent about its other big ploy to gain customer loyalty, the $199 Kindle Fire tablet. That could indicate that either sales of the device were lower than expected or purchases through the Kindle Fire didn’t reach estimates (or both).

If you combine the slow Prime membership growth and Kindle Fire data silence with the recent rumors that Amazon is plotting to open up brick-and-mortar retail stores across the country, it’s no wonder investors are worried about the company’s future revenue.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Despite an aggressive push to increase its variety of TV shows and movies, Amazon isn’t planning to split off its Prime streaming video service into a standalone subscription offering, according to the company’s management team. At least not anytime soon.

Currently, Amazon offers its streaming video service as an added perk for members of its Prime membership, which costs $79 per year and includes free two-day shipping on lots of items sold on the online retail giant’s website. At its core, the Prime membership’s purpose is to make purchasing items through Amazon more attractive because people feel like they’re getting more of a deal since shipping fees aren’t factored into individual purchases.

“The bundle of benefits that come with Amazon Prime make perfect sense to offer to customers. The way that Prime Instant Video is offered today—we’re going to continue that approach at least into the near future,” Amazon Head of Digital Video Content Acquisition Brad Beale told Gigaom recently.

One reason people are speculating that Amazon will split off the Prime video portion into its own subscription service is that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings, “We expect Amazon to continue to offer their video service as a free extra with Prime domestically but also to brand their video subscription offering as a standalone service at a price less than ours.”

Another reason people expect a standalone Prime video service Amazon’s aggressive pursuit of new streaming licensing agreements. In July, the company added streaming content from CBS and NBCUniversal. It added Fox Network content in September. And earlier this week, Amazon signed a deal to bring Viacom video content to Prime, which makes the Prime service’s streaming library more competitive with Netflix and Hulu.

Personally, I don’t expect Amazon to break its streaming video into a standalone service. And since the company’s main focus is to drive more sales to its retail business, it doesn’t make sense to provide ways for people to get only what they want without interacting with the main website. Right now Amazon doesn’t have to spend money promoting and marketing its Prime video for it to remain lucrative. That wouldn’t be true if it was a standalone service.