AMAZON PRIMED FOR MUSIC STREAMING
By Graeme Hague
12 June 2014
Amazon is working towards launching its own music streaming service and again you might hear the collective groan, “Not another music stream.” This time, it’s not quite the same. For a start Amazon has been playing hard-ball with some of the music labels, trying to negotiate deals that aren’t getting a lot of support. For example, Universal has yet to sign up which means a very large chunk of popular artists won’t be accessible on the service. However, Amazon probably isn’t aiming for world domination in the music streaming business anyway. It’s more likely to become all part of the Amazon “package” such as adding streaming to its Amazon Prime membership, which offers free shipping of goods to members, free videos and so on in exchange for an annual subscription. In other words, music streaming will be just another virtual department inside the massive Amazon organisation and simply add to Amazon’s appeal as a provider for everything – a critical component of its marketing – and its primary purpose is to be served up as part of bundles and deal makers. So the big players in music streaming shouldn’t worry. Except, of course, this is Amazon we’re talking about.
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