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Tag: Amazon

  • Guy Builds Web Resume That Looks Like Amazon Product Page

    Well, this guy sure has an interesting resume – or CV or whatever you want to call it. Upon first glance, you probably wouldn’t even notice that this Amazon product page is actually a a giant advertisement for Philippe Dubost, and web product manager.

    Yet it is. Dubost has refashioned his website, phildub.com, to closely resemble an page on Amazon.com – product pictures, star ratings, dimensions, descriptions, and even a button to “add to cart.”

    According to Dubost, there’s only 1 left in stock and it ships directly from Paris, France. In the product details we find the the product is 186 cm and comes in English, French, and Spanish. The average customer review, of course, is five stars.

    Below that, Dubost has inserted a product description and “professional experience” disguised as product reviews.

    (image)

    The links are functioning as well. If you click on the author name link, it takes you to his LinkedIn profile. If you click “add to cart” a contact form pops up. All of the links to his various places of education and employment go to the respective sites.

    The unique web CV is gaining a lot of attention right now, so I guess it worked. Let’s see if it gets him hired at Amazon or somewhere else that could use a clever web product manager.

    [via Business Insider]

  • Stephen King Publishes “Guns” Essay As Kindle Single

    Best-selling author Stephen King has written a personal essay called “Guns,” and has published it exclusively as a Kindle Single in Amazon’s Kindle Store. Amazon made the announcement this morning.

    King said of the essay, “I think the issue of an America awash in guns is one every citizen has to think about. If this helps provoke constructive debate, I’ve done my job. Once I finished writing ‘Guns’ I wanted it published quickly, and Kindle Singles provided an excellent fit.”

    “It’s exciting to offer a way for a brilliant writer like King to publish quickly, and to reach a large audience of loyal readers and new customers,” said David Blum, editor of Kindle Singles. “King finished this essay last Friday morning, and by that night we had accepted it and scheduled for publication today.”

    The essay begins:

    Here’s how it shakes out.
    First there’s a shooting. Few of the trigger-pullers are middle-aged, and practically none are old. Some are young men; many are just boys. The Jonesboro, Arkansas, school shooters were 13 and 11.

    There is a longer preview available if you want to sample it. The essay can be found here for $.99 (along with the preview).

    While King is known best for his often epic fiction, he is certainly no stranger to non-fiction, and this is simply his latest slice of it. In addition to his works like Danse Macabre and On Writing, he has contributed numerous articles to Entertainment Weekly, to name a few.

  • Amazon Acquires IVONA, Makers Of Key Kindle Fire Features

    Amazon announced Thursday morning that it has acquired IVONA Software, makers of text-to-speech technologies that power the Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore By Touch features on Amazon’s Kindle Fire devices. The software maker also provides text-to-speech products and services to thousands of other developers and businesses.

    Amazon did not offer a lot in the way of details of the acquisition. Terms were not disclosed, but considering the competitive landscape, it makes sense for Amazon to own the technology behind these important features for its tablets (and if it starts making smartphones, it will be even more important).

    Amazon Kindle VP Dave Limp says, “IVONA’s exceptional text-to-speech technology leads the industry in natural voice quality, accuracy and ease of use. IVONA is already instrumental in helping us deliver excellent accessibility features on Kindle Fire, including Text-to-Speech, Voice Guide and Explore by Touch. The IVONA team shares our passion for innovation and customer obsession, and we look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world.”

    IVONA CEO and co-founder Lukasz Osowski adds, “For more than ten years, the IVONA team has been focused on creating innovative text-to-speech technologies. We are all thrilled that Amazon is supporting our growth so that we can continue to innovate and deliver exceptional voice and language support for our customers.”

    IVONA’s voice and language technologies include 44 voices in 17 languages. According to the company, more are in development.

  • Canadians Can Finally Purchase (Some) Kindles From Amazon.ca

    Amazon.ca has almost everything the enterprising Canadian online shopper needs. Unfortunately, the Kindle is still not available despite it being made available pretty much everywhere else. Amazon is starting to fix that today.

    Amazon announced today that the Kindle Paperwhite and new Kindle are now both available via Amazon.ca. Our friends up North can now experience the simple joy of reading a book on a paper-like display. If they want to go extra fancy, the Kindle Paperwhite provides a special backlight that alters the contrast for an even better reading experience.

    “We’re excited to make the best-selling and most advanced e-readers in the world available to our Amazon.ca customers for the first time, making it easier and more affordable than ever for Canadian readers to own a Kindle,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “With a Kindle in their hands, Canadian customers can now directly access the Kindle Store with the largest selection of the books people want to read, including the largest selection of best sellers and over 250,000 titles that are exclusive to the Kindle Store.”

    The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite starts at $139 CDN for the Wi-Fi only model. The Wi-Fi/3G model goes for $199 CDN. The regular new and improved Kindle goes for the super low price of $89 CDN. Both are available via Amazon.ca and Staples Canada.

    In even better news, Canadians can now access the Kindle Store directly from their Kindle devices. There’s over 1.5 million Kindle books, including over 250,000 exclusive titles to pick from. French Canadians will be happy to know that ere also over 50,000 French-language books in the Kindle Store.

    Unfortunately, the Kindle Fire has yet to be made available to Canadians. IP rights are a mess and Canadians get shafted more often than not when it comes to these kind of services making their way up North. Let’s hope Amazon can get it fixed up right quick.

  • ‘Terms And Conditions May Apply’ Documentary Explores Google, Facebook Privacy

    Often, when major Internet companies make product changes or announce new offerings, people wonder what that means for their privacy. One example in which we’re currently seeing this is with Facebook’s new Graph Search. Google and Facebook in particular have had to answer to the FTC with regards to privacy issues in the past, and both have to undergo regular third-party audits to make sure they remain in compliance.

    Facebook is always making changes to its policies, it seems, and Google launched a major overhaul of its privacy policy last year, enabling it to share data from one product to the next. This continues to draw controversy in some places.

    A new documentary called Terms And Conditions May Apply just premiered at Sundance, which takes a deep look into how our use of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other web products impacts our privacy.

    The movie was made by Cullen Hoback, who made Monster Camp, and FrICTION.

    You can watch the trailer here.

    [via CNET]

  • Amazon Mobile App SDK Makes Nice With Adobe AIR

    We recently reported on how Adobe AIR and Flash are being used to make the next generation of mobile titles. Now Amazon is tapping into these tools to bring its APIs to more people in mobile development.

    Amazon announced today that Adobe AIR native extensions for the In-App Purchasing and GameCircle APIs are now available to its mobile app developers. What this means is that games be developed with AIR can now easily integrate IAP and GameCircle without having to write any custom code.

    This is just the latest addition to the Amazon Mobile App SDK in recent months as the company has been aggressively courting developers by offering free tools that make the development process easier. The most recent addition was an Eclipse plugin that would make integrating Amazon APIs into Android apps much easier.

    Alongside mobile development, Amazon is getting into traditional PC development in a big way by offering its In-App Purchasing API to game developers who post free-to-play PC titles on Game Connect.

    In short, all of this shows that Amazon is getting really serious about gaming on mobile and desktop. The retail games business may be shrinking, but Amazon is poised to be a major player in the digital games business in the years to come. It’s Appstore for Android is already doing extremely well, and it will only get better from here on out if it’s able to secure exclusive titles and even stronger developer support.

  • Amazon Now Offers In-App Purchasing Services To PC Game Developers

    Amazon has always been a huge player in games retail, but the company is quickly becoming a major player in game development as well. It’s already heavily involved in mobile game development with a number of helpful APIs like GameCenter. Now the retail giant is starting to focus on its free-to-play PC gaming service again that started with Game Connect.

    Amazon announced today that its in-app purchasing service is now available to PC, Mac and Web-based game developers. In short, gamers will be able to use their Amazon account to buy stuff in games that use the company’s Game Connect service.

    “We’re passionate about making game developers successful, and we’ll continue to build services that make monetization easier and remove undifferentiated heavy lifting from developers,” said Mike Frazzini, Director Amazon Games. “Game developers build games that are used across multiple platforms and mediums. In-App Purchasing for Mac, PC and Web-based games is our latest service that helps game developers grow their business and increase their customer-base. For years, Amazon has focused on making the online shopping experience as frictionless as possible, and we are excited to share this expertise and technology so that game developers can offer customers this same great experience.”

    Here’s the benefits of using Amazon’s new service, according to Amazon:

  • Customers can use any credit card, gift certificate or promotional credit associated with their current Amazon account to purchase in-app items—making it simple and low friction for customers to purchase content and leading to higher sales and increased conversion.
  • Developers automatically have access to Amazon’s proven fraud detection technology, thereby reducing their exposure to fraud.
  • All transactions are supported by Amazon’s world-class, top-rated Customer Service to provide customers with the very best purchasing experience.
  • To help developers with game discovery and marketing, in-app items will automatically be available on Amazon.com, and in-app purchases can show up on best seller lists, recommendations and merchandising campaigns, helping customers discover new games and items, while adding another point of engagement for existing players.

    • The biggest benefit to developers is access to Amazon’s powerful retail presence. Millions of potential players flow through Amazon’s Web store every day, and they just might be compelled to check a game out after seeing a listing for an in-game item. Everything else is pretty standard fare that’s offered by other in-app purchasing services.

    The new service is an extension of Amazon’s Game Connect service, and as such, only requires a few steps to set everything up. Developers who want to join up with Game Connect will want to check out Amazon’s help page. All the information you need is there.

  • Amazon Will Soon Open A New California Fulfillment Center

    Amazon has announced plans to open a new fulfillment center in Tacy, California, which the company says will create hundreds of full-time jobs at the million-square-foot site. This will be the company’s third fulfillment center in the state.

    Amazon opened its first California fulfillment center in October, in San Bernardino. During the opening of that one, the company donated $25,000 to local nonprofits and announced that it had brought 700 jobs to the area. The company is already having its second California fulfillment center built in Patterson. That one is expected to open this summer.

    “We are grateful to be members of the California business community and to employ so many hardworking and skilled Californians,” said Mike Roth, VP of Amazon’s North American operations. “We are excited to be growing in the state and to be creating hundreds of full-time positions in Tracy.”

    Tracy Mayor Brent Ives added, “I am honored and pleased that Amazon recognizes our streamlined business development efforts, prime location and resources available to meet the demands of their fulfillment center. Amazon is a wonderful addition to our economic base and will provide hundreds of jobs for residents of Tracy.”

    Kish Rajan, Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, said, “This latest development in Tracy not only represents good jobs coming to the region but California’s strong partnership with Amazon. This third new distribution center marks a commitment by Amazon of over 1,000 California jobs in the last year alone. We look forward to continuing our relationship with this world leading brand and hope to build more opportunities for Californians in the future.”

    The company has fulfillment centers in Arizona, Virginia, Tennessee, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, as well as in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Japan and China.

  • Amazon Launches High Memory Cluster Instances For EC2

    Amazon announced new High Memory Cluster instances for Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). These are designed for memory-intensive applications, like in-memory analytics, databases, caching, and scientific computing, the company says.

    These instances are especially helpful for applications that require a lot of memory on one instance or require taking advantage of distributed memory architectures, the company says.

    “Memory-intensive workloads such as real-time applications used by healthcare providers, social networking companies and advertising technology providers require large amounts of memory to maintain high-performance,” said Amazon Web Services VP of Compute Services, Peter DeSantis. “We designed the High Memory Cluster instances specifically for these workloads, and this is the third instance family (along with High Storage instances and High I/O instances) launched in the past six months designed specifically for high performance applications. We’ll continue to listen and learn from customers and provide additional instance families and capabilities to meet the requirements of their applications.”

    VP of HANA Cloud at SAP, Sapan Panigrahi, says, “The new High Memory Cluster instances provide sizeable CPU cores and storage to run even larger workloads on SAP HANA in the AWS cloud. By leveraging the strength of SAP HANA in-memory computing, with the agility and low cost of the AWS cloud, a new generation of solutions are now possible. We look forward to enabling these instances to help our customers run real-time applications in the cloud.”

    According to Amazon, the the High Memory Cluster instances are the most cost-effective that the company provides, as far as distributed memory-intensive applications go.

  • ‘Zombieland’ Original Series Coming to Amazon Prime

    ‘Zombieland’ Original Series Coming to Amazon Prime

    Someone find Tallahassee some Twinkies (although it may be even harder now).

    Fans of Zombies, the film Zombieland, and streaming video services should be happy with news coming out of the world of all three today. According to reports, Amazon has snatched up the rights to Zombieland, the TV series.

    Presumably, that means that we can expect some sort of streaming setup to be delivered via Amazon Prime Instant Video or simply Amazon Prime (if Amazon decides it wants to charge per episode). The report from Broadcast Now suggests that the show would be streamed in 30-minute episodes, and previous leaked casting documents obtained by io9 suggests that the series will center around the characters you know and love from the film.

    Previous reports had the Zombieland TV series landing on CBS as some point, but it looks as though Amazon is going to handle the production.

    As Amazon fights with streaming competitors like Netflix for your monthly streaming service budget, they will have to increasingly focus on original content, not just making content deals. Netflix is poised to have a pretty big year when in this respect. In just a few weeks, the David Fincher/Kevin Spacey political drama House of Cards will drop on Netflix.

    And in April, horror master Eli Roth’s original series Hemlock Grove debuts exclusively on Netflix.

    And even though it’s technically not a Netflix original, the Netflix-exclusive series Arrested Development is coming in May.

    We’re excited to see the zombie/comedy series in Amazon’s (hopefully) capable hands. You shouldn’t expect it any time soon, however, as casting calls just went out last week for Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock (the characters, not the cities).

    [Broadcast Now via io9]

  • Amazon Makes It Easier To Integrate Its APIs Into Android Apps

    So, you’re building an Android app, and you want to make it available on the Amazon Appstore. You’re going to have to integrate all the necessary Amazon APIs into your app, and that could take a long time. Rather, it used to as Amazon has just introduced a new tool that makes it easier to develop apps for its appstore.

    Amazon announced today the availability of its Mobile App SDK Eclipse Plugin. The software is currently in beta, but it should “increase your productivity in developing apps and games for distribution on Amazon.” It works by generating the “appropriate config entries for the APIs you select,” and then “copies over the relevant API jar files.” Amazon says you can also use the tool to quickly undo API integration without affecting the original Eclipse project.

    Amazon Makes It Easier To Integrate its APis Into Android Apps

    Here’s some more additional details about Amazon’s new Eclipse plugin:

  • Free to use: As with other resources we make available, the plugin is free for developers distributing their apps on Amazon.
  • Easy to use: Developers have indicated that it is surprisingly fast to deploy and use the plugin. The deployment of this tool follows the typical Eclipse plugin download and installation experience and does not require a new usage paradigm.
  • Gives you control of APIs and versions: The plugin allows you to use the latest version of the APIs in the Amazon Mobile App SDK that you have on your system and will alert you if your project is using an older version of the APIs.
  • Works for all apps and games: The plugin helps you to quickly develop any Android app that you plan to offer via the Amazon marketplace, including Kindle Fire tablets and Android smartphones.

    • If you need help in obtaining the Eclipse plugin, hit up Amazon’s help site. It has all the information you need. If you’re feeling especially helpful, you can also fill out this survey on what you think of the product in its current beta form.

  • Amazon Optimizes MP3 Downloading For iPhone, iPod Touch

    Amazon Optimizes MP3 Downloading For iPhone, iPod Touch

    Amazon announced today that it has launched the Amazon MP3 store for iPhone and iPod Touch. Users can tap into the company’s 22-million song library with Safari in a better way than what was possible before.

    The site is built on HTML5, and lets users make purchases, which apparently was not already an option.

    “Since the launch of the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch, a top request from customers has been the ability to buy music from Amazon right from their devices. For the first time ever, iOS users have a way do that – now they can access Amazon’s huge catalog of music, features like personalized recommendations, deals like albums for $5, songs for $0.69, and they can buy their music once and use it everywhere,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Amazon Music.

    Purchases are automatically saved to customers’ Cloud Player libraries, and can be downloaded or played from any iPhone, Pod touch, iPad, Kindle Fire, Android phone or tablet, Roku, Sonos home entertainment system, or any web browser.

  • Amazon Instant Video Hits Wii Consoles

    Amazon Instant Video Hits Wii Consoles

    Better late than never. Nintendo of America today announced that Amazon Instant Video is now available for the original Wii console. The service has been available for the Wii U since late 2012, just before that console’s TVii service came online.

    Wii owners can now grab the Amazon Instant Video app from the Wii Shop Channel for free. After registering their Wii console using both the Wii and the Amazon website, users can browse through movies and TV shows for purchase or rental. Amazon Prime subscribers gain access to free streaming titles through the Wii, just as on other platforms.

    Though it would have seemed unlikely just one year ago, Amazon has successfully turned its fledgling video streaming service into a real competitor to Netflix’s Watch Instantly service. It accomplished this by using its considerable resources and influence with Hollywood studios, which sells millions of DVDs through Amazon every year. Last year Amazon inked deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal, and EPIX – a joint venture between MGM, Viacom, and Lionsgate. The company also managed to put an Amazon Instant Video app on the other two major video game consoles (the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) as well as many new “smart” TVs being sold.

  • Amazon AutoRip Gives You Free MP3s of CD Purchases, Retroactively

    Amazon AutoRip Gives You Free MP3s of CD Purchases, Retroactively

    Amazon is looking to incentivize physical music sales by providing digital copies automatically and free of charge with each purchase. They’re also hoping that they can keep customers using their Cloud Player. Oh yeah, and it’s retroactive.

    We’re talking about Amazon “AutoRip,” a new service that gives customers MP3 versions of any CDs they purchase on Amazon. When a customer purchased a CD that’s AutoRip eligible, Amazon throws the corresponding MP3s onto their Cloud Player library. It all takes place automatically and for free.

    And Amazon says that AutoRip is retroactive. If you’re purchased an AutoRip CD any time between now and 1998, you can expect MP3 version of those CDs to be waiting for you in your Cloud Player library.

    “What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs… and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Well, starting today, it’s available to all of our customers – past, present, and future – at no cost. We love these opportunities to do something unexpected for our customers.”

    Every AutoRip MP3 is stored in your Cloud Player library but doesn’t count against the storage limits. The AutoRip MP3s will be rendered in 256 Kbps.

    “AutoRip is available for industry-wide top-sellers like ’21’ by Adele; new and recent releases like ‘¡Uno!’, ‘¡Dos!’ and ‘¡Tre!’ by Green Day, ‘Overexposed’ by Maroon 5, and ‘The Truth About Love’ by P!nk; classics like ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd and ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson; and Amazon customer favorites like ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ by Susan Boyle, which was the most pre-ordered album of all time on Amazon,” they say.

    AutoRip is currently available on 50,000+ albums. If you want to know if a CD is AutoRip compatible before you buy, just look for the AutoRip logo on the page.

    Sure, it’s not a huge breakthrough – and CD sales will continue to decline even if digital copies are part of the deal. But by putting users’ MP3s in Amazon’s Cloud Player automatically, the company is increasing the chances that users will stick to Amazon for their streaming desires (and forgo iTunes or Google Play).

  • Target Will Price-Match Amazon Year Round

    Taget has decided to expand a holiday promotion and keep price-matching of online retailers an option for the entire new year, according to a report from Reuters.

    According to the company, they will continue to match the prices on competitor’s websites – Walmart, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and yes, Amazon.

    This past holiday season, Target unveiled online price-matching for what they said would be a limited time (November 1st to December 16th). Target’s prior price-matching policy read like most other retail stores, allowing for customers to bring in print ads for identical products and receive a discount either at the time of purchase or for a short period following the purchase. It previously excluded “promotions or products advertised on another company’s web or mobile sites, even those advertising in-store prices,” so the new price-match policy was a big change for Target.

    The new plan extends the new price-match policy, while also expanding it to Target.com prices. Customers will have one week to bring in the competitor’s price in order to get their refund. Although the Amazon price-matching doesn’t include third party sellers housed on Amazon Marketplace, it still means that Target is taking on an online retail outlet that is known to boast some unusually low prices for some products.

    How can Target manage this, you ask? Was the holiday price-match program that profitable? Well, not exactly. A target exec told Reuters that not many customers are taking advantage of the price-match program. Still, offering price matching from Amazon sets Target apart from many other retailers. It’s clear that the company knows it must fight showrooming – the frequent practice of using a physical retailer as a “showroom” for products, and then going home to make an oftentimes cheaper purchase online.

  • Amazon Prime Lands in Canada Sans Instant Video

    Canada, I’ve some good news and some bad news. What do you want to hear first? Ok, let’s go with the good.

    The good news is that Amazon is finally bringing their Amazon Prime subscription service to Canada. The bad news is that it’s a nerfed version of the service that still retains the same price tag.

    The Canadian version of Amazon Prime offers the same free two-day shipping and discounted one-day shipping (with no minimum purchase) that we’re accustomed to here in the States. The only problem is that Canadian Amazon Prime subscribers will not have access to two pretty huge perks: Kindle ebook lending and Prime Instant Video.

    According to the Canadian Press, Amazon.ca’s Steve Oliver says that there are no plans to brings these options to the Canadian Prime service.

    “We are proud to bring Amazon Prime to Canada,” said Steve Oliver, country manager for Amazon.ca. “Amazon Prime offers its members the convenience of fast, free shipping on millions of eligible items, whether the order is for a single DVD or a kitchen mixer. There is no minimum purchase amount and no need to consolidate orders, so Canadians from coast-to-coast can enjoy a simpler, faster shopping experience.”

    Yes, but $79 (CAD) a year (which is roughly the same price we pay here in the U.S.), some Canadians may expect more than shipping perks. Although, if you buy enough from Amazon, the shipping perks are more than enough to justify the subscription fee.

    Amazon is looking to entice Canadians with a free month of the service, which they can sign up for here.

  • Amazon Record High Attributed To Morgan Stanley Comments

    Amazon stock hit a record high on Monday, reaching as high as $269.30 at one point.

    Bloomberg attributes the spike to statements made by Morgan Stanely, who said the company’s network of distribution centers will help it gain marketshare as global ecommerce grows. Bloomberg quotes analyst Scott Devitt:

    Amazon is investing across the company to boost the volume of products sold on its site, adding features to its Kindle line of e-readers and tablets and beefing up its inventory and shipping network. The efforts may help Amazon gain share in a worldwide e-commerce market that Scott Devitt, an analyst a Morgan Stanley, estimated will reach $1 trillion by 2016, up from $512 billion last year, By then, Amazon’s share will be 23.5 percent, pushing net sales to $166 billion, he predicted.

    “Amazon.com’s fulfillment network is an under appreciated, strategic asset.” Devitt wrote in the Jan. 6 report. He had previously projected 2016 sales of $145 billion and a 20.6 percent market share. “Companies, such as Amazon.com, that have the ability to decrease variable unit costs in exchange for fixed-costs will have the opportunity to expand margins and take share.”

    In other Amazon news, the company launched Instant Video Finder today, making it easier for users to browse content. Last week, the company inked a deal with A+E Networks to bring shows like Pawn Stars and Storage Wars to Amazon Prime Instant Video. Last month, it made a similar deal for TNT shows.

    As of the time of this writing, Amazon shares are at $268.46 (+9.31‎, 3.59%‎), after opening at $262.97.

  • Amazon Instant Video Finder Launches in Beta

    Amazon Instant Video Finder Launches in Beta

    While it’s not a personalized recommendation engine, Amazon has unveiled a tool that should make it easier for users to browse content and find something to watch.

    Amazon has just announced that they’ve opened up their Instant Video Finder Beta, which allows users to browse TV and film selections based on a variety of categories.

    The Instant Video Finder sports all of the categories you’d expect – drama, action, thriller, sci-fi, etc. But there are some interesting groupings that make for some interesting finds. Categories like this include Nonlinear, Dsytopian, TOugh Guy, and Tech Noir.

    The beta tool allows you to limit your browsing to Prime Instant videos (the free ones with a membership), as well as simply TV shows or simply movies. For those browsing for something to watch with their kids, you can limit the selection to “rated G or PG.”

    Amazon Prime now sports over 33,000 titles. The company just inked a deal with A+E Networks to bring popular content from channels like A&E, bio, History, and Lifetime to their catalog.

  • Amazon Inks Prime Deal with A+E Networks for Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and More

    Amazon Inks Prime Deal with A+E Networks for Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and More

    Amazon has just announced another licensing agreement to bring more content to its Prime Instant Video service. This time it’s A+E Networks.

    “In a year we have more than doubled the Prime Instant Video selection for our Prime members,” said Brad Beale, Director of Digital Video Content Acquisition for Amazon. “We remain focused on adding TV episodes and movies to Prime Instant Video that we think our customers will enjoy. A+E Networks has some of the most popular shows on television and we know our customers will love streaming the A+E content with Prime Instant Video.”

    The A+E Networks deal will bring prior season of shows from channels like A&E, bio, History, and Lifetime – including the networks’ highest-rated programming like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and Dance Moms.

    Amazon boasts that their Prime Instant Video catalog (free with Amazon Prime subscription) now boasts over 33,000 titles.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, Amazon inked a deal with Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros to bring two popular TNT drama to Prime Instant Video – The Closer and Falling Skies.

    And a few months ago, Amazon made the biggest content acquisition in recent memory for Prime Instant Video when they made a deal with EPIX, a joint venture between major studios Viacom (Paramount), MGM, and Lionsgate. At the time, the claimed that brought their title count to over 25,000 – so Amazon Prime Instant Video has grown in over 8,000 titles in the past few months.

  • Barnes & Noble’s Nook Business Took A Dive During The Holidays

    Barnes & Noble is the last national book store chain left in America because it jumped on the eBook revolution early with its line of Nook eReaders. It also introduced new tablets in the form of the Nook HD and HD+ to take on Amazon and its wildly successful Kindle Fire. Unfortunately, the holidays weren’t too kind to the retailer.

    Barnes & Noble reports that Nook revenues declined more than 12 percent in the lead up to the holiday season. In essence, what should have been a great quarter for the company turned out to be a bust. What’s even more shocking is that the BGR says Nook hardware and digital content sales combined are shrinking faster than the already shrinking traditional hardcover and paperback market.

    So, what went wrong? It’s really hard to say. Barnes & Noble priced its Nook tablets competitively for the holiday season. Its Nook HD+ and Glowlight Nook, competing against the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 inch and Kindle Paperwhite respectively, were priced the same or lower than the competition. Even then, the devices couldn’t achieve sales on par with Amazon’s Kindle devices.

    For now, Barnes & Noble says that its Nook business has brought in $3 billion in revenue over the fiscal year with losses “at a comparable level to fiscal year 2012.” It’s not a death spiral, but it’s not good either when all the other tablet and eReader manufacturers are posting profits. In fact, Amazon said that its Kindle business had its best weekend ever on Black Friday and Cyber monday. In comparison, Barnes & Noble said that Nook sales “got off to a good start over the Black Friday period, but then fell short of expectations for the balance of the holiday.”

    Barnes & Noble can now go one of two ways – it can either continue in the tablet business or sell off said business to another interested party. It already spun off Nook into its own subsidiary and has received substantial funding from both Microsoft and Pearson. Microsoft could step up and purchase the Nook business to increase its relevance in the tablet market, but its own botched handling of the Surface may not make the Redmond-based company a good fit.

    At this moment in time, it would be smart for Barnes & Noble to hold onto its Nook business. The losses weren’t staggering during the holidays, and the company still has some time to reevaluate how its going to compete in a market that’s already saturated with inexpensive tablets. It’s only problem is that it lacks the retail muscle of Amazon and deep pockets of Google. Nook is an underdog, for sure, but it might just be worth rooting for in the new year.

  • Kindle Fire HD Discounted $50 For Students

    One of the promises that came with the growing tablet market was an end-run around college textbook price-gouging. Students everywhere were supposed to be using interactive textbooks and doing homework within social class apps by now. Obviously, that hasn’t happened yet, but Amazon is still pushing to make sure it’s tablets are in the hands of students.

    Slashgear is reporting that Amazon has launched a $50 off promotion for its Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ tablets – but only for students. Anyone who is signed up with Amazon Student (using a .edu email address) for a discounted Amazon Prime membership has access to the deal. Both the Wi-Fi and 4G LTE versions of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ are eligible for the sale price, and the deal lasts throughout the month of January.

    Amazon is encouraging Kindle owners to use their devices as learning tools. Amazon Student members can subscribe to Amazon Prime for $39 a year, which is slightly less than half the normal price. In addition, Amazon allows textbook rental through its Kindle tablets, and recently introduced the X-Ray feature for textbooks. X-Ray is an integrated glossary allows users to cross-reference words and passages throughout a book and on the web through Wikipedia and YouTube.