Amazon Previews Rival Streaming Service to Netflix

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/amazon-previews-rival-streaming-service-95069

by gibsonf1 • 15 years ago

46 35 15 years ago

ErrantX5• 15 years ago

which for an annual subscription fee of $79 a year gives users unlimited free two-day shipping, for a while

2 days? Is it different in the US then? We get next day shipping with Prime in the UK (usually I can order up to about 8pm at night and have it arrive next day by lunch).

On the topic of the article; seems like a very vague piece of speculation. But also seems a reasonable move for Amazon to make ("Kindle Video", anyone?) at some point. Being free to Prime customers seems unlikely to be honest, but if that is their model it sounds killer!

Predictions;

1. The streaming won't be best quality (at least at first)

2. Will be US only for aaaaaaaaaaages :(

corin_2• 15 years ago

To be fair, packages have a hell of a lot further to travel to get across USA than here in England, so the longer shipping time would make sense.

As to your predictions, I agree with it being US-only (if it happens), but I would expect good quality. I mean, it's not like they're some random company with no understanding of the web, they do have AWS' infrastructure to use.

ErrantX5• 15 years ago

Do they not have state level distribution centers? If not, I see your point.

I also just recalled; recently Amazon bought the British company LoveFilm (who also do streaming).. interesting timing.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

Yes, we get free 2-day shipping with Prime, or $4/item for 1-day shipping.

It's pretty rare that I opt for the 1-day, but when I do, it's awesome. The other day, I ordered something at 3pm and got it 9:30am the next day.

ErrantX5• 15 years ago

My best record was the first time I ever signed up to Prime; ordered something 10pm at night.. and it came 9:30am the next day!

2mur• 15 years ago

I've had Prime (US) for awhile and I couldn't be happier with it. I don't think I've ever opted for 1-day shipping, but I'll often receive items next-day anyways.

Qz• 15 years ago

I opted for 1day once when I needed a new monitor ASAP. When you're already paying $250, $4 for one day shipping seems cheap. Two day shipping occasionally gets here in one day, but sadly I'm late in the UPS delivery route so nothing shows up until 4pm in the afternoon...

bdonlan• 15 years ago

I'm studying in Japan, and amazon's _free_ shipping (with no minimum!) here is about as fast as Amazon Prime in the US, in my experience. Of course, it helps that it's a small country, and I'm fairly close to Tokyo.

btucker2• 15 years ago

If Amazon & Netflix start becoming full-on competitors, it would seem to make Netflix's use of AWS a little awkward. I wonder if Netflix will regret the decision to move more and more of their infrastructure into Amazon's hands.

pedanticfreak• 15 years ago

No more awkward than Apple using Samsung to fab its chips.

lsb• 15 years ago

And in both situations, each company is giving its competitor coarse-grained data about its customer base (Netflix in real time, Apple with a few months' lead).

If Netflix hasn't put DRM on their stream, someone monitoring the pipe could easily get the zeitgeist of what movies are being streamed.

btucker2• 15 years ago

It's certainly a good point-- It's not like competitors that also work together is a new concept. Except I'd say this is a bit different. We're not talking about Netflix relying on Amazon to produce a hardware component, we're talking about Amazon staffing and being responsible at the lowest level (24/7) for Netflix's service to operate (I'm assuming a bit here... perhaps Netflix can still function through an AWS outage). And I'd question if that's really something you want to put in the hands of a company which wants to steal away your customers.

cryptoz2• 15 years ago

Amazon's a nice IaaS provider, though, right? It should be easy for Netflix to migrate to a different cloud...unless of course I'm wrong, and Amazon has them locked-in somehow.

lukev• 15 years ago

Amazon video-on-demand is actually a great service, technically speaking, and they already have a streaming library at least as large as Netflix. I am actually very surprised that Amazon has it so tucked away in their site and don't promote it much.

While it currently isn't economically viable for heavy consumers using it as a substitute for TV, as Netflix is, they definitely already have the technology in place. All they need to do is get the pricing/subscription model right.

askedrelic• 15 years ago

Their built-in support on my Panasonic Viera TV has been quite good: simple to setup, no fuss to buy, and HD looks good enough for me. Amazon has given me a few $5 video credits and enticed me to watch/buy a few more movies and tv shows through. I would definitely be interested in this.

bpyne• 15 years ago

We bought Roku a few months ago. I find we use Netflix and Amazon in a complimentary fashion. However, we lean towards Netflix because of the pricing model - a flat monthly rate - rather than Amazon's brick-and-mortar video store model. Also, Amazon's library is mostly, from admittedly my own small sampling, purchase only. Even though the purchase price is often not very much, I still don't want to own videos.

Basically, I'd love to see Amazon's library grafted onto Netflix's pricing model.

sfphotoarts2• 15 years ago

completely agree, the service is fabulous, great technology and they have a huge inventory, even on-going shows. I don't have TV but have been able to watch Gossip Girl without having to wait for the DVDs of Season 4.

AlexC04• 15 years ago

I would almost be ready to hazard a guess that it's exactly as big as Netflix' library. Many recent articles from Netflix has talked about how they have dealt with moving everything to AWS.

Wouldn't it make sense if some company like Amazon decided to set up a "white label" streaming service?

Netflix carries all the expertise, negotiates all contracts with providers, aquires rights to the show, etc... Amazon carries marketing muscle and an installed user base of people who've stored their one-click credit card number in the system.

Netflix pays a commission on every streaming product sold and does all the rest of the work. It's drop-shipping a la Walmart-store-brand-version-potato-chips. It has the added benefit of looking like competition (like Best Buy vs. Future Shop in Canada, both owned by the same company ... or Cadillac vs. Chevrolet).

Makes sense to me.

twodayslate• 15 years ago

Amazon's current video service is not that great. The downloader does not work. Streaming works fine, but when you buy a movie... you should be able to download it to your computer.

cryptoz2• 15 years ago

Fingers crossed for Canada. Fingers crossed for Linux.

Maybe someday.

cory_and_trevor2• 15 years ago

They don't even have a kindle reader for linux, and the kindle RUNS linux. Yet they have Windows, OS X, iOS, and android...

sfphotoarts2• 15 years ago

why would they? The market for Windows, OSX, iOS etc dwarfs the linux-on-the-desktop market. It's business. Linux is for servers, OSX is for clients (and pesky Windows for the office because IT says so)

I don't see this changing anytime soon, and this discussion has been thrashed to death, I think that there will be dwindling support for Linux with desktop apps. The best you can hope for is a browser solution and that Chrome keeps building on Linux.

hachiya• 15 years ago

Amazon's Video on Demand works fine in Linux already, so this new service likely will too.

Big win over Netflix if the selection of the upcoming service is just as good. There will be no need to boot up qemu-kvm on Linux to load Windows, just to stream a video.

Also, Amazon's MP3 downloader program has a Linux version. So they do have some record of catering to us.

iuygtfrgth2• 15 years ago

Netflix Canada have greatly expanded their range - it now almost competes with the 99c bargain bin at the gas station.

MikeCapone• 15 years ago

More competition can only be good for the consumer, but unfortunately it'll probably take ages before it comes to Canada and the selection will probably be much smaller than in the US.

That's if all this isn't made irrelevant by 25 gig/month caps...

blocke• 15 years ago

Amazon current streaming works great on Roku but I've been surprised with how few platforms they are on. Netflix totally owns them as far as availability on devices goes and it's something Amazon will have to fix if they are serious.

Amazon Previews Rival Streaming Service to Netflix

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