Now that Amazon’s music streaming service – Prime Music – has been up and running for more than a year, the e-commerce giant is apparently cleaning house in the music department by ditching a three-year-old application that allowed users to upload previously purchased music into their Amazon Music library. [More]
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Amazon Prime Packages Reportedly Overwhelming College Campuses
By 10.6.15
If you think Amazon Prime is a reasonable deal at $99/year, imagine being a college student who only has to pay half that amount. Apparently, so many college students are using the service that school mailrooms are being overwhelmed with smiling cardboard boxes. [More]
Amazon To Prohibit The Sale Of Apple TV, Google Chromecast
By 10.1.15
Amazon appears to be taking a page out of Apple’s playbook by removing competitors’ products from its virtual shelves. The e-commerce giant said today that would prohibit the sale of video-streaming devices from rivals Google and Apple that aren’t compatible with its own Prime video service. [More]
Amazon Flex Launches In Seattle, Allows Regular Joes To Earn Money Delivering Prime Now Packages
By 9.29.15
Amazon’s latest attempt to quickly and cheaply deliver packages got underway in Seattle on Tuesday with the launch of the company’s consumer-turned-courier program, Amazon Flex. [More]
Amazon Chops $32 Off Amazon Prime Membership Price In One-Day Sale For New Subscribers
By 9.22.15
Amazon is in a pretty good mood after snagging five Emmys for its original series, Transparent, and to celebrate, it’s giving new subscribers to its Prime service $32 off the usual price. [More]
Amazon Selling New 7″ Fire Tablets In A $250 Six-Pack
By 9.17.15
Would you pay $50 for a 7″ Amazon Fire? If not, Amazon thinks you might be down to pay $41 for one if its new tablets — if you’ve got six people you want to give one to. The company is announcing a new lineup of Fire tablets today, including six-packs of the 7″ tablets — which usually go for $49.99 each — for $250. Just to compare, that’s six tablets for half the price of a 32GB iPad mini. [More]
Amazon Has Finally Sold All Of Its Fire Phones
By 9.9.15
Last year, Amazon endlessly teased us all with what was going to be either a new smartphone or some kind of exotic sex toy. Unfortunately for Amazon, it was the former, and the Fire Phone failed to catch on. That’s okay, though, because the last phones have been sold, and the engineers who made the device into a real-life phone are gone. Amazon can just pretend that none of this ever happened. [More]
Netflix Won’t Offer Downloadable Content Anytime Soon Because Users Just Couldn’t Handle It
By 9.8.15
Any Netflix users who got their hopes up that maybe the streaming service would follow in Amazon’s footsteps and offer downloadable content that can be watched offline on a mobile device, well, your dreams probably won’t be coming true anytime soon: Neil Hunt, Netflix’s Chief Product Officer says it’s unlikely the company will go the route of offline viewing because adding another choice will just make the whole thing too complicated for users. [More]
Amazon Now Delivering Restaurant Food In Seattle
By 9.8.15
If having Amazon deliver your groceries or farmers market produce wasn’t enough, the e-commerce giant turned deliverer-of-all-things-edible now plans to bring consumers piping hot meals right to their dining room tables with its foray into the restaurant delivery service arena. [More]
E-Book Prices Increase, Sales Slump After Amazon & Publishers Finalize Contracts
By 9.4.15
Just three months after Amazon tied up its bevy of contracts with top publishing houses, it looks like those deals might not be working out well for several companies, as they’ve reported declining e-book revenues in recent months. [More]
Amazon Adds 11 Brands To Dash Button Ordering
By 9.2.15
Users of Amazon’s ordering gadget, the Dash button, have been able to quickly restock their supply of Kraft Mac & Cheese, Tide, Cottonelle, Bounty and 14 other products for about five months (or one month if they didn’t receive an invitation early on). Now, they can buy even more, as the e-commerce company has expanded its quick-ordering platform by 11 additional brands, including Ice Breakers, Ziploc, Orbit gum and Greenies dog chews. As was previously the case, the gadget can be purchased for $4.99, but for a limited time Amazon will provide customers a $4.99 credit for each Dash button they buy. [The Washington Post] [More]
Analyst: Best Buy’s Prices Now Much Closer To Amazon’s
By 9.1.15
When looking for the best deal on electronics consumers used to flock to a little chain called Best Buy, but over time Amazon – with the growing convenience of shopping from home, speedy deliveries and discounts – has crowded into the electronic store’s customer pool. Now, after years of playing catchup, it appears that Best Buy has closed the pricing gap with its online rival. [More]
Amazon Prime Videos To Finally Be Downloadable On iOS, Android Devices
By 9.1.15
One of the selling points of Amazon Fire tablets — especially for frequent travelers and parents whose kids like to watch movies while riding in the back seat — is that Amazon Prime members can download videos for offline viewing. This option has not been available for Prime members using iOS or non-Amazon Android devices. But now Amazon is giving these members the ability to download movies and shows to watch at their convenience. [More]
Amazon Now Delivering Farmers Market Produce To Your Door
By 8.31.15
Between Prime Pantry, Amazon Fresh and Seattle’s new Prime Now alcohol delivery, you never have to leave your house to restock the pantry. That is unless you want fresh produce grown by local farmers. Well, it appears that Amazon has that covered for you now, too. [More]
Google Adds Paid Home Service Provider Suggestions To Search Results For “Clogged Toilet,” “Plumber”
By 8.31.15
Less than a year after Amazon took on the likes of Angie’s List, Yelp and other companies that can connect consumers to professional service providers like plumbers, locksmiths, electricians and others, Google announced it would join the fray by adding prescreened service providers to its sponsored search results. [More]
Amazon Lets Third-Party Merchants Limit Where They’ll Ship Prime Items For Free
By 8.28.15
Amazon’s Prime program includes third-party merchants, whose shops let the online Everything Store expand its inventory without building more warehouse space. While the company is experimenting with making these merchants part of the Prime program for items that already have free shipping, However, some of these merchants get to limit how far they will ship an item for free. [More]
Amazon Lays Off Engineers Behind Fire Phone, Reorganizes Hardware Division
By 8.27.15
You’ve probably never heard of Lab126, but you’ve definitely heard of their parent company and their products. They’re a division of Amazon, started in Silicon Valley eleven years ago to create the e-reader that we now know as the Kindle. They also created some projects that haven’t caught on quite as well, like the Fire Phone, and engineers who worked on that projects have reportedly been sent on their way. [More]
Amazon Launches App Store That Claims To Show Other Actually Free Apps
By 8.26.15
In a relatively novel idea, Amazon has launched a new store called Amazon Underground that claims to provide Android users with a list of top apps that are actually free – no hidden in-app purchases here. [More]
