Amazons New Video Platform, Game Changing???

[MrJoel]

Looks like amazon is finally rolling out their direct challenge to YouTube but offering content providers with a few different options to get paid. The article explains a bit. What do y'all think?


"

Amazon.com Inc. will let people post videos to its website and earn money from advertising, royalties and other sources, putting the company in more-direct competition with Google’s YouTube.

Amazon already offers movies and television programs over the Internet -- including its own original productions -- to compete with Netflix Inc. The new product will let Amazon give consumers more options about what to watch without an upfront fee because many of those posting videos will be paid based on how their content performs. Competing streaming services have been driving up the cost of this material.

Amazon used a similar strategy to boost its inventory of electronic books through Kindle Direct Publishing, which lets authors bypass traditional publishers and reach readers directly by posting and selling their own e-books online.


The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said the service is designed for “professional video producers,” but its only requirements are that the videos be high definition and have closed-captioning for the hearing impaired.

Amazon is late in challenging YouTube, which has over 1 billion viewers who help it generate billions of dollars a year in advertising revenue and create Internet sensations such as PewDiePie. YouTube is looking to diversify its revenue with a subscription TV offering Unplugged that could debut next year.

Amazon has “tens of millions” of Amazon Prime members who get video streaming as part of their shopping and free-shipping subscriptions. Amazon sees video as a way to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

The companies are fighting for the eyeballs of cord cutters, those who cancel cable television subscriptions in favor of video streaming options, and those who never subscribed to cable at all.


The new Amazon service gives video producers many ways to get paid. They can sell or rent their programs on Amazon, or make videos available to all Amazon customers (not just Prime subscribers) in an advertising-supported format. Another option: Provide videos to Amazon Prime members and get royalty payments based on how many times the content is streamed, or as part of an add-on subscription.

Amazon will also distribute $1 million a month to the makers of the 100 most popular programs viewed by Prime members each month.

Partners include Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Pro Guitar Lessons. Content from these providers can be found now on Amazon Video. HowStuffWorks posts videos regularly on YouTube and has more than 450,000 people who follow its channel on the video site.

Amazon is also dueling with YouTube over video-game streaming. Amazon purchased the live-streaming site Twitch for about $1 billion in 2014. Twitch focuses on live broadcasts, letting viewers interact with broadcasters in chat rooms in real time. YouTube offers on-demand access to uploaded videos. The two platforms are converging, with YouTube adding live functions and Twitch letting broadcasters upload previous episodes to their channels."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...youtube-with-new-online-video-posting-service​

 

[Sailormoto]

I'll give it a try but if i take amazon prime video as an example of what it would be like then it will take them a while. Amazon prime video was just a jumbled mess as instead of standing their service alone like netflix, they integrated it into the same site. Half the time i had no idea if i was searching through prime videos, rentals or actually buying the DVD.

I'll see what they've got but YouTube is still king as they have the most content whereas i think Vimeo is far superior video wise.

 

[MrJoel]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...youtube-with-new-online-video-posting-service

 

[dandoolittle]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...youtube-with-new-online-video-posting-service

I've edited your first post to add link

 

[willph]

I don't think this will take off. YT is too big for this kind of thing.

 

[Reize]

Amazon really has nothing on Youtube. Vimeo has been at it for far longer trying to compete with Youtube with superior video quality, but they still can't match Youtube.

The whole reason is Vimeo's interface isn't as light as Youtube, requires more resources to run smoothly, which is what people on low end machines and mobile want. And people on mobile are who you want to capture as they are the ones more prone to sharing videos around on that platform.

I'm not saying that Youtube is great. Youtube has some actual shitty problems like audio equalization. But if you can't convince viewers to flood your platform and switch from YT, then content creators won't either, and vice versa.

 

[AndyManCam]

I might take a look. Always nice to give folks options. Particularly if there's any chance the quality might be better than youtube.

Thinking about trying vimeo for the same reasons.

 

[BlackMamba]

Hmmm when does it hit the UK?

 

[VaRider]

This is an interesting option, but take caution before you do this. Amazon has their own way of doing things, you may or may not get paid like you expect. Especially with the amount of traffic YouTube pulls up, they are very late into this game. I am pretty sure I have read somewhere that independent authors are not happy with sales on Amazon, but I would have to find that. So if that point of view is true, then it may be more of the same for video producers, music producers, etc. Interesting article on how Amazon works the book side of the market, I imagine some of the same would apply for this service too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brooke-warner/the-top-10-things-all-aut_b_6744386.html

 

[asterisk*]

This seems like it will only cater to big YouTubers.

 

[Filthy]

It could work but reading into it, they will only accept HD videos with closed captioning. Would give it a try though, why not.