The main reason for using Amazon Prime was for its “free” 2-day shipping (subscribers paid an annual fee of $79, now $99). But don’t call it Prime Shipping any more – Amazon Prime also includes video streaming (Prime Instant Video), a Kindle lending library, and as of today – a new music service.
With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership. Prime Music includes tens of thousands of albums from top artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna.
And, Amazon, wrote in its announcement, “we’re just getting started – more music is being added all the time. Prime members can choose exactly which songs and albums to listen to, or they can sit back and listen to hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists.”
The service appears to be similar to Spotify, and Amazon writes, “Discovering music is easy thanks to Amazon’s personalized recommendations.” Amazon is famous for its ability to serve up product recommendations on its shopping site, so it will be interesting to see if it can apply its capabilities to music.
Amazon Prime has tens of millions of members, giving them a reason to shop on its marketplace first in order to get the free, fast shipping. Some wondered if Amazon Prime would take a hit when the company raised the price of the service this year, but Amazon continues to add services to appeal to consumers.
Amazon also launched a Roku-like TV set-box in the spring called Amazon Fire (it costs $99) and the Amazon Dash scanning wand that connects to home Wi-Fi networks and works directly with AmazonFresh accounts. Both services are separate from Prime, but they demonstrate the company’s continued focus on providing content and shopping services to consumers.
