Multinational entertainment and retail giants Amazon have launched their latest venture – a music streaming service named Prime Music…
This latest piece in their puzzle will only be made available through Amazon’s yearly subscription package. Currently the cost for this sits at £79 for one year’s access. As well as allowing access to Prime Music, the membership also entitles members to unlimited online photo storage, early access to special Amazon offers and a special Kindle library service.
Launching with just 1 million tracks, the available catalogue is currently dwarfed by almost every other streaming site out there – but it would seem extremely likely that this will change in the coming months.
Rather than push what the service does have, Amazon are keen to press on people what you WON’T get, specifically, “No ads, no playback restrictions and no additional cost.” Whilst it’s probably fair to expect all of this from a subscription-based provider, it is certainly worth reinforcing. As well as the songs themselves, Amazon are offering Prime Stations – effectively their take on a radio service. Currently Fire tablets, iOS and Android devices are all supported, and home listeners can also access from a PC or Mac. Songs can be downloaded to play in locations without a Wi-Fi connection.
Prime has given Amazon plenty of column inches in recent weeks, with the announcement of the signing of Messrs. Clarkson, Hammond and May still fresh in the mind. Whether their TV news and the Prime Music launch can swell their user-base remains to be seen.
Author – Chris, Liverpool store.
