Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Amazon Starts Web Video Service | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

More analysis of the expanding Amazon/Netflix rivalry

In essence, Amazon is more or less doing what Netflix did when it started out on the Web, too: Grabbing the streaming rights to whatever it could buy/afford, and throwing it in as a freebie (note that “Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Man on Wire”–but not the Louis C.K. stuff–are available via Netflix Instant, too).

But now check out Netflix, which has a catalog of some 20,000 titles, and is selling an all-digital service for $8 month–one that is apparently attracting a third of its new customers.

Amazon certainly has the dollars and clout to compete with Netflix – and Apple, and Microsoft, and Hulu, and whoever else wants to bid on these rights, which generally aren’t exclusive, anyway. So if it wants to push aggressively into Web video, it can.

But for now, consider this a starting point, and not much more.

Amazon Starts Web Video Service | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

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