Of course, the Amazon Prime service itself costs $79 annually. Despite this, Amazon Prime has been a big hit for Amazon.com, with a large percentage of members signing up for the program, even with the only perks being free two-day shipping and lower cost one-day shipping. This new development will likely mean a spike in membership.
The Amazon Instant Video page is here. Earlier, the program was leaked after some pages were marked with "Watch Now" buttons for some Amazon Prime members.
Obviously, this is a big shot across the bow of Netflix. Netflix's streaming-only subscription is $7.99 per month, which adds up to more than the Amazon Prime membership. Of course, Netflix has a larger library of content, at least for now, with an estimated 20,000 movies and television shows. It doesn't take a genius to assume that Amazon.com will expand its library, pretty quickly.
Additionally, for those who do most of their shopping on Amazon.com, it's a win-win proposition. You get the already existing Amazon Prime shipping perks, plus what is bound to be an expanding library of video.
The service is U.S. only, for now. Also, those who are subscribed to Amazon Prime free through Amazon Mom and Amazon Student must upgrade to a paid membership. Amazon.com's press release says:
Movies and TV shows included with an Amazon Prime membership can be watched instantly on Macs, PCs and nearly 200 models of Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes that are compatible with Amazon Instant Video. The selection of videos available for instant streaming currently includes movies, such as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy, "Amadeus," "Syriana," and "Chariots of Fire," noted documentaries such as "Food Inc.," "March of the Penguins" and "Ken Burns' National Parks," plus TV shows, such as "Doctor Who," "Farscape," "Fawlty Towers" and children's shows, such as "Arthur," "Caillou," "Super Why!" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."For generous souls, don't forget that a relatively unknown benefit of the Amazon Prime program is that you can share your Amazon Prime membership with four others. The instructions say they should be household members, but realistically, they do not (wink, wink). You can see instructions here on how to do it.
Amazon Prime is a membership program that offers customers unlimited free Two-Day Shipping with no minimum purchase requirement for only $79 a year. Millions of items are eligible, including books, home and garden products, electronics, video games, clothing, accessories and beauty products. With the introduction of Prime instant videos, free trial and paid Amazon Prime members in the U.S. now also have unlimited instant access to more than 5,000 videos.
Via: Engadget, Amazon.com
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