Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Amazon's Next Step Towards Online-Buying Dominance

It's no longer a secret that iTunes is slowly losing ground to Amazon's mp3 music-buying service. I've used both services myself, and to be honest they both have their merits.

But Amazon doesn't seem content sticking to music downloads, given rumors of their upcoming Android app store. And while it will obviously be competing with the Android Market, it's still a huge vote of confidence for the Android platform since Amazon obviously believes it's a viable financial option.

The big difference between the two app markets seems to be the vetting process. Google has taken a very hands-off approach, which doesn't take any action against buggy or questionable apps until they are flagged by users. Amazon plans to spend a week or so vetting potential apps before releasing them.

Amazon seems to be doing the right things to gain a foothold in the Android app market, but until their app store actually launches we're all left to simply speculate on what app the future will hold.