Amazon Launches Video Streaming Service

In January I wrote about Amazon buying a popular European movie streaming service, and how many of us were assuming this meant Amazon would soon be entering into the video streaming business.

Apparently "soon" meant about a month, because Amazon has officially released a video streaming service for their prime members. Although a prime membership on Amazon costs $79 per year, the video streaming service is free, which is a great additional feature.

For those debating whether to go with Netflix, Hulu or Amazon for their streaming needs, that $79 per year makes Amazon the cheapest of the three, at about $6.60 per month.

The downside of Amazon's service right now boils down to two things: clunky navigation and less titles than their established streaming counterparts.

However, I expect Amazon to tweak their system a little bit over the next couple of months, and this is a big first step for the online retailing giant in gaining a solid foothold in the Netflix/Hulu video streaming conglomerate.

Video Post: Dawn of a New Day for Online Video?

In this week's Daily Axioms video post, I look into a recent ComScore report showing that Hulu is still getting twice as much online traffic as five major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW) combined. More importantly, I discuss what this may mean for the future of online video and whether or not we'll continue to see more and more professionally-produced content with Hulu and Netflix.

Next-flix? Amazon Buys Lovefilm

The proliferation of mobile devices has paved the way for streaming video to see huge growth over the past year. As of right now, the two giants of streaming video content are Hulu and Netflix.

Obviously there are other services out there, but those two are the ones who are dominating the market share. However, we could see a strong contender emerge with today's announcement that Amazon has bought Lovefilm, a movie streaming and rental service.

Amazon already has a similar service, but it hasn't achieved the success of some of its other service like its music downloading and e-book sales. This move should lead to a greater focus on Amazon's movie streaming, as it comes at an interesting time.

I say that given the somewhat-unclear status of Hulu after the approved merger of Comcast and NBC (which is a huge deal, by the way). And although it appears Hulu is safe from any sweeping changes, until the merger actually happens no one can know for sure. But regardless of what does happen, the speculation alone could cause Hulu to suffer a little bit, opening the door for Amazon to gain a foothold.

What I would like to see is some integration with one of Amazon's most-popular properties, IMDB. I'm envisioning some sort of "Add to Queue" button next to the movie titles on IMDB.

Either way, this is probably good news for existing Amazon customers who haven't dived in to the movie streaming waters quite yet.