Amazon Prime Music is an on-demand subscription service similar to the market leader Spotify, Rhapsody, Deezer and the company now owned by Apple; Beats Music. This is only a few among the free music streaming services out there. They all differs from Pandora, which operates a radio-like offering supported by ads. Pandora has the biggest audience, but you can`t pick the precise song you like. You can stream whatever you like on the other one, so long as they has it.
Deezer
Deezer is founded by Daniel Marhely in 2006. The first version was called Blogmusik, but they did not have agreements with the record labels, so it was shut down in April 2007. Deezer is a web-based music streaming service.
You can listen to music content from record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. Deezer is created in Paris, France. They currently has 30 million licensed tracks in its library. In addition; they has over 30,000 radio channels and 16 million monthly active users, and 5 million paid subscribers. The service is available in 182 countries.
Amazon.com Inc is an American international electronic commerce company founded by Jeff Bezos in July 1994. The company name was Cadabra at the beginning, but changed to Amazon.com in 1995, because Bezos thought it sounded too much like cadaver.
1994 is early in the internet era. I can remember I sent my fist mail and chatted for the first time in 1994. It was a very special time, but now many things have changed. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVD`s, VHS`s, CD`s video and MP3 download/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry.
They also produces consumer electronics, notably the Fire Phone, Amazon Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle Fire tablet computer, and is a major provider of cloud computing services. The company continue to grow and are now out with a new product; Prime Music.
Prime Music
Prime Music is a streaming service included in a Prime subscription. Amazon like to say that Prime Music has «unlimited, ad-free streaming» and a catalogue of «over a million songs». So? People using for example Spotify knows that their catalogue have well over 20 million songs. That`s more than twenty times the songs from Prime Music.
If you look at the Billboard Hot 100 list, only one out of ten is on Prime Music. So, nine out of ten is not available via Prime Music streaming. Why should people start to use Prime Music instead of Spotify? I don`t think subscribers to Spotify or Pandora fans will switch to Prime Music and their competitors shouldn`t be too scared of the new competitor.
You are paying for the service, via your subscription fee, which is $99, plus all of those purchases you`re making at Amazon. But it still sorta feels free. The «free» two-day shipping isn`t really free either. It`s a flat prepaid payment of $99 for a year`s worth of shipping.
Amazon is using a tactic out of the storied cable TV bundle playbook. A package includes 100, 200, or sometimes more than 700 more options. If you pay $99 per month it sounds like a lot. If the customers spend much time on the membership they will probably be tempted into making purchases, and they will feel that a Prime membership is an absolute essential.
Youtube
Google-owned Youtube is deleting indie bands music videos over contractual disputes ahead of a streaming music service launch. Youtube is removing videos from independent acts because their labels could not come to an agreement on Youtube`s revamped royalty terms.
The deals with those independent labels have been a sticking point in the development of Youtube`s subscription-based music service, which was originally expected to launch early this year. The reason is that Youtube was trying to strong-arm smaller labels into accepting non-negotiable terms that would offer smaller payouts than their competitors like Spotify and Deezer.
Youtube has reached deals with about 90 percent of the music industry, including the three major U.S labels. Their new on-demand paid streaming service is expected to allow users to more easily organize songs by album and listen to songs via Youtube while using other mobile apps and download songs for offline listening. Youtube will launch a paid service for streaming music over the currently free channel.
They already has music service called Play All Access, with a subscription of $9,99 per month which was launched in May last year. This service allows you to listen to any song, artist or album you like without any ads. In addition; you have the ability to create your own radio station by selection a song, genre of music, artist or album. Videos distributed by Vevo on Youtube will remain as part of the company`s free service.
Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have signed up for Youtube`s new music streaming service, which is expected to launch in a few week. The price for the service is not released yet.
Who will win this war? The one with the biggest catalogue and the lowest price. People don`t care where they are listening to the music. It will remain the same song on all channels. Some of them can differentiate themselves to create packages like Amazon.
The most important thing is that the artist and producers are making money on it. If not, the music industry will die.
Reports today:
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Ket Garden
Shiny bull 