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Yesterday, Amazon announced the launch of an Amazon music streaming service available only for its Prime, paying subscribers.
The news cannot shock anybody, since music streaming services are not only highly popular, but Amazon is racing fast to give its competitors some reasons of concern.
To date, some of the most popular such services are undoubtedly Pandora, with over 75 millions members, Spotify, which boasted with its 40 million users and counting several times and Apple’s Beats Music. We have covered in the past the most important news related to Spotify and the purchase of Beats Music by Apple, but today we will focus on Amazon and its new service for the greater good of its Prime users.
How many Amazon users are Prime users? The data is a bit confusing, but from what we gathered from multiple sources, the “tens of millions” paying members are in fact around 20 millions. Amazon doesn’t reveal exact numbers, so we will work with what we have. Now it may not be a lot of people getting this service, but these people will have a no extra – cost, ads – free catalog of around 1 million songs to choose from.
The catalog is still under development, mind you, as Amazon is working on bringing even greater things to its Prime subscribers. According to Amazon’s VP of digital music, Steve Boom,
We’re offering up over a million tracks of great music. You’re not going to find everything under the sun in the Prime Music catalog, but that’s where we’re starting today, and you’re going to see more music added over time.
The Amazon music streaming service will work along the lines of a combination between Pandora and Spotify, taking the best out of the two:
These customers will be able to choose stations that are populated for the user, as on Pandora, or they’ll be able to choose specific songs, as on Spotify. Songs will also be available for download and offline play, as long as the user retains his or her Prime membership.
Of course, if you already have purchased songs in your library, you can import songs from these libraries and make your own playlists. The traditional recommendation system implemented by Amazon will also work in this case. Based on your prior selection of music, you will receive song recommendations and you can download the tunes to listen them on your smart device later on.
All in all, the Amazon music streaming service comes up as yet another strategy to win over customers and shake the tech world. Jeff Bezos still has a big event to host next week and all the new services, gadgets and innovations Amazon releases into the world are just as many trials to keep Amazon among the biggest players in the field.
