Amazon Prime is a premium service by Amazon which started as a subscription service to allow Next Day (two day in the US) shipping on any products from Amazon without any charge or minimum purchase fee. This helpful service has began to expand and include many different Amazon owned services and products, with the newest addition being that of Amazon Prime Music in the US.
Currently Amazon Prime provides the following perks:
Kindle Lending library, this allows Kindle owners to borrow books from its 500,000 strong library for free each month.
Amazon Instant Video, this video streaming site is Amazon's attempt to enter the market that Netflix has been dominating, streaming video, specifically tv series and film content.
In recent months Amazon has made big changes to Amazon Prime in the US and UK, in the UK, Lovefilm streaming was renamed to Amazon Instant Video and now included in the UK version of Amazon Prime to match the current inclusion the US receives.
The changes to minimum price for shipping from Amazon to £10/$10 now provides even more incentive to pick up Prime for shipping due to its no minimum cost and always Next Day (two days for US) shipping.
Amazon has also in the last year pushed its new Amazon Studios to create original content to match the caliber of Netflix's House of Cards success. With some of its shows such as 'Alpha House' receiving great reviews leading to a Second Season being picked up.
On June 12th Amazon announced its new addition to Prime, that of Amazon Prime Music. With its 1million songs at release it has a much smaller library then that of market leader Spotify with 20million. Like Spotify Premium, Prime Music has no ads, no restrictions on skipping songs and no additional costs for certain music. Ultimately this is great value for Prime customers in the US providing what Spotify charges $9.99 a month, for free, and provided the majority of chart music is present, many will not miss the 19million extra songs Spotify currently provides.
Amazon Prime Music can be accessed via the use of the Amazon Music app, with Prime members can also able download Prime Music app providing offline listening.
Ultimately Prime is growing more and more as a service, and if the price can remain competitive and maybe incorporate some of Amazon's other purchases in future months such as games from its recent purchase of Double Helix or a subscription to Washington Post (although this was bought by Jeff \bezos rather then Amazon) then Amazon stand the switch a lot of new users onto Prime as a service, biting into the market share of both Netflix and Spotify even further.
I personally cannot wait until Amazon Prime Music is brought to the UK version of Prime so I can enjoy its perks without buying Spotify, and I hope Amazon Prime Music can bite enough into Spotify's market share to push Spotify to innervate and maybe even drop in price.
*Update* Now live and available in the US.
