Amazon offering user Generated Video Hosting

 

 

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Your Video Widget allows any registered Amazon Affiliate to upload a video and then select products that can be displayed as the video progresses (demo above). Video content can be anything from a product review through to a holiday video, but there are some restrictions; users can not include a URL in the video, or feature availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information for any product in the video itself, on top of the usual porn and piracy restrictions. Users can pick any products they would like to be displayed, with Amazon suggesting only that they work better if they have some context to the video, and that no two products can appear within 10 seconds of each other.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

Amazon Video Widgets do not come with a central portal where you are able to view videos YouTube style, so this product wont compete in that space. For those looking at new ways of monetizing their videos, be it either because they are unable to sign up to YouTube’s program, or are not getting good results from YouTube, Amazon Video Widgets provide another path to video monetization.

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Amazon offering user Generated Video Hosting

 

 

Amazon has quietly entered the video hosting and monetization game with Your Video Widget.

Your Video Widget allows any registered Amazon Affiliate to upload a video and then select products that can be displayed as the video progresses (demo above). Video content can be anything from a product review through to a holiday video, but there are some restrictions; users can not include a URL in the video, or feature availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information for any product in the video itself, on top of the usual porn and piracy restrictions. Users can pick any products they would like to be displayed, with Amazon suggesting only that they work better if they have some context to the video, and that no two products can appear within 10 seconds of each other.

Like all Amazon Affiliate related advertising, the ads served are paid as a percentage of generated sales, and are not offered on a CPC or CPM basis.

Maximum file size is 100mb, length 10 minutes, and accepted formats are avi, flv, mov, mpg, wmv.

Amazon Video Widgets do not come with a central portal where you are able to view videos YouTube style, so this product wont compete in that space. For those looking at new ways of monetizing their videos, be it either because they are unable to sign up to YouTube’s program, or are not getting good results from YouTube, Amazon Video Widgets provide another path to video monetization.

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Amazon Web Services goes down....

 

 

Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage this morning, affecting the thousands of Websites that rely on its storage (S3) and cloud computing (EC2) services. Startups including Twitter, SmugMug, 37Signals, and AdaptiveBlue, for instance, use Amazon’s S3 storage service to store all the data for their Websites. Reports started coming in across the Web, email, and Twitter about the outage (Twitter only uses S3 for file hosting, not its main messaging application). The major difficulties seem to have been fixed, but some issues persist. The outage started at around 4:30 AM PT.

This could just be growing pains for Amazon Web Services, as more startups and other companies come to rely on it for their Web-scale computing infrastructure. But even if the outage only lasted a couple hours, it is unacceptable. Nobody is going to trust their business to cloud computing unless it is more reliable than the data-center computing that is the current norm. So many Websites now rely on Amazon’s S3 storage service and, increasingly, on its EC2 compute cloud as well, that an outage takes down a lot of sites, or at least takes down some of their functionality. Cloud computing needs to be 99.999 percent reliable if Amazon and others want it to become more widely adopted.

A response from Amazon PR:

For one of our services, the Amazon Simple Storage Service, one of our three geographic locations was unreachable for approximately two hours and was back to operating at over 99% of normal performance before 7 a.m. pst. We’ve been operating this service for two years and we’re proud of our uptime track record. Any amount of downtime is unacceptable and we won’t be satisfied until it’s perfect. We’ve been communicating with our customers all morning via our support forums and will be providing additional information as soon as we have it.

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Amazon is turning into a shopping search engine

 

 

Amazon is making a move in the direction of becoming a shopping search engine. This week, it launched a program called Product Ads, which lets any Web merchant buy cost-per-click ads on Amazon linked to specific product searches.

No announcement was made other than a blast e-mail to product marketers and the addition of a paragraph at the bottom of this page describing how you can advertise with Amazon.

Although it is a limited test for now (in the Electronics & Computers, Home & Garden, Tools, and Toys, Kids & Baby categories), Product Ads is a direct response to the encroachment of Google and product search engines like eBay’s Shopping.com.

More people probably start their online shopping at Google than at Amazon.com these days. With Product Ads, Amazon is fighting back. Anyone who searches for a product on Amazon today will find either products that Amazon sells or ones that its merchant affiliates sell. Now Amazon is saying that any Websites that is selling something related to its product categories can buy an ad that will show up as a highly targeted product search result, along with all the items on Amazon and its merchant sites.

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Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

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Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

........................................................................................................................ 

Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

........................................................................................................................ 

Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

........................................................................................................................ 

Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

........................................................................................................................ 

Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

........................................................................................................................ 

Amazon sells its DVD rental business to Lovefilm and then makes cash investment

 

 

In what looks to be a deal more beneficial to Amazon than any other participants, the monster online retailer is selling its European DVD rental business to LOVEFiLM International, Europe’s version of Netflix. This goes for Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany, two regions where LOVEFiLM is prominent.

To make things more exciting, Amazon is in turn making a cash investment in LOVEFiLM in order to become the largest shareholder in LOVEFiLM International. Though the financial details of these transactions were not disclosed, the deal will give LOVEFiLM access to nearly 1 million users across the U.K., Germany and also Scandinavia.

In the end, it looks like Amazon would rather further its initiative with DVD rentals as part of the LOVEFiLM brand as opposed to a division under its own Amazon umbrella. As the Associated Press reports, the investment will help LOVEFiLM grow its own business, expanding its reach and providing it with additional resources, and also gives Amazon access to a wider rang of consumers through LOVEFiLM’s brand, which is probably more receptive to consumers than a subset of Amazon’s already expansive website.

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Amazon last quarter revenues up 42 percent to $5.7 billion

 

 

Amazon had a strong fourth quarter, with revenues up 42 percent to $5.7 billion, net income doubling to $207 million, and free cash flow doubling as well to $1.4 billion. On the earnings call, there is a lot of concern among analysts about margin pressure next year.

One detail that stuck out in the earnings release hints at the growth of Amazon Web Services:

Adoption of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) continues to grow. As an indicator of adoption, bandwidth utilized by these services in fourth quarter 2007 was even greater than bandwidth utilized in the same period by all of Amazon.com’s global websites combined.

That means startups and other companies using Amazon’s Web-scale computing infrastructure now bigger collectively than Amazon.com, at least as measured by bandwidth usage. Amazon is one of the largest Websites in the world (No. 7 in the U.S.), so that is a significant milestone. Amazon doesn’t break out revenues from its Web Services, but presumably it is part of the “Other” line, which was only $131 million for the quarter and includes businesses besides Amazon Web Services (such as its merchant services).

Registered developers in the quarter reached 330,000, a 10 percent increase from the third quarter.

Demand for the Kindle continues to outstrip supply. CEO Jeff Bezos says:

The Kindle, in terms of demand, is out-pacing our expectations. it is also on the manufacturing side causing us to scramble We are working hard to increase the number of units we can supply. Our goal is to get back into a situation when you order a Kindle, we ship it immediately. That is our standard.We are super-excited by the demand.

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Drink lots of Pepsi, get DRM free music for free on Amazon

 

 

Amazon.com and Pepsi have teamed up for a new free music cross promotion that will see Pepsi drinkers earn free music with Pepsi purchases.

“Pepsi Stuff” is billed as a “massive collect-and-get program” where “consumers can download the most DRM-free MP3 music available anywhere.” In layman’s terms, drink lots of Pepsi, get DRM free music for free on Amazon.

Starting February 1, Pepsi users must “bank” their points on PepsiStuff.com to redeem them for music on Amazon MP3.

This move from Amazon shows how serious they are about to promoting its DRM free music store to a wider audience.

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Amazon launches software download store

 

 

Amazon has just launched an online store for downloading software. The selection is currently limited to Turbo Tax, but iis likely to add many new downloads soon.

As with the company’s MP3 store, you first need to install a download client, and then you can grab your purchases. Once done, your new software is on your PC and added to your Amazon Media Library on the chance you may need to download it again someday.

To top off the launch, Amazon put up a free-of-charge software sample for those of us who just want to try the new feature, but have…you know…no interest in a copy of Turbo Tax.

Amazon global retail domination continues...

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Amazon launches its awful Q & A website

 

 

Amazon.com has launched Askville.com, an information-sharing Web site where users can ask questions and answer queries from others.

The site, open to all of its customers, has been in beta testing since December 2006 and has already been open to a few users.

The site looks like it has been created in India over the weekend, the design is weak and the logo looks it was created in word.

Given similar services are offered by Yahoo Inc's Answers and other Web sites such as AnswerBank the obvious question is why has Amazon bothered. Amazon must feel they will be able to use the site as a means to extend its audience.

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THE FROSTFIRE BUZZ TEST

1. Is this a unique product? 6/10

2. Is this business/product difficult to replicate? 6/10

3. Is this something that can appeal to a large global audience? 7/10

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Amazon now wants you to subscribe to regular product deliveries

 

 

Subscribe & Save is a new option being offered by Amazon, and it’s a way to get you to spend more money up front.

When you order through our Subscribe & Save program, you automatically receive a new shipment of the item in intervals you select--every one, two, three, or six months. You also get a discount on our everyday price, get free shipping on every Subscribe & Save shipment and pay for each order only when the item is shipped.

This is a great idea and service from Amazon and the concept of susbscription shopping is a great model for Amazon. This service is likely to gain rapid traction from regular Amazon shoppers.

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Amazon sneaks one-click past the patent system

 

By changing the word 'a' to 'the' and adding the phrase 'purchasable through a shopping cart model,' lawyers for Amazon.com have apparently managed to reinstate two of CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims that were rejected a month earlier.

'Patent Owner's Rep was informed that the proposed addition to the claims appear to place the claims in condition of patentability,' writes the USPTO in its Ex Parte Reexamination Interview Summary of the 11-15 conference call that was held with five representatives of the USPTO and patent reformer Amazon.

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Amazon Kindle sells out in 5 hours

 

 

Charlie Rose's interview with Jeff Bezos reveals that the Kindle sold out within just 5-1/2 hours of going on sale.

Amazon hasn't revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so it may just be that they didn't anticipate early demand.

A check of the Kindle's product page shows that more will be rolling out starting December 3rd.

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Amazon launches "Customer Video Reviews,"

 

 

Amazon.com has launched "Customer Video Reviews" enabling customers to use video to share their opinions and demonstrate the use of products on Amazon.com.

Customer Video Reviews are located within the Customer Reviews section of items in the Amazon.com catalog. For example, check out this video review in which Amazon.com reviewer "Anjana" shows the Fisher-Price T.M.X. Tickle Me Elmo toy in action.

"We are dedicated to offering our customers an information-rich shopping experience so they can know which products are right for them," said Colin Bodell, vice president, Amazon.com. "The chance to see product demonstrations as submitted by fellow customers is just the latest benefit to shopping on Amazon."

Amazon supports the upload of a .WMV, .MPEG, QuickTime or .AVI file to the Customer Reviews Section of any product detail page.

The new Flip Video camcorder from Pure Digital provides on-board software which allows users to upload a video to Amazon.com. A Customer Video Review shot with a Flip Video camcorder can be seen here.

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Is Amazon's MP3 store already #2?

 

 

Just weeks after launch, a number of labels are saying privately that they believe Amazon has jumped to #3 in download sales for their releases. eMusic and iTunes hold the #2 and #1 spots respectively.

Amazon could be #2 by year's end for some labels if measured by dollars paid instead of the number of tracks downloaded, according to at least one prediction. Amazon pays labels far more per track downloaded than eMusic's subscription model.

If true, Amazon's instant success is not great news for Rhapsody, Zune, Napster and other download services who have invested millions of dollars over the last several years to gain market share.

Amazon also announced last week that it will pay affiliated sites 20% through the end of the year on mp3 sales then drop to 10%. Even at 10% the pay out is twice the 5% that iTunes pays its affiliates.

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