First Netflix. Then HBO. And now, Amazon, is
going after YouTube's lunch. The e-commerce giant is opening its doors
to video creators through a new service it's calling Amazon Video
Direct, even launching a program called "Amazon Video Direct Stars" to
directly court YouTube's top "stars" with big payouts.
The online retail giant will now allow
content makers to upload their own video creations to Amazon — and make
money through subscriptions or advertising. And if that sounds like
Amazon is trying to become YouTube, that’s because it is.
They're also addressing a huge source of pain
for YouTube creators, who consistently lament that they don't make
enough money. On that front, Amazon has an attractive deal: for creators
who make it into Amazon's top 100, they'll pay an additional $1 million
a month.
Amazon Video Direct has at least 19 companies signed up to use the service thus far, including Condé Nast, Machinima
and Samuel Goldwyn Pictures, but anyone can use it. People uploading
through the service have the ability to choose where and how exactly
their customers can see their video: free on Amazon Prime (for Prime
members), free with ads, via rental or actual purchase, or even as part
of a subscription service. It’s also global, though not, perhaps, in the
way streaming giant Netflix is — creators can make their videos
available in the U.S., Germany, Austria, the U.K. and Japan.
These videos won’t live in a separate section
of Amazon Video, cordoned off from Amazon-produced or paid-for content
like “Transparent” or “Man in the High Castle,” at least not according
to a cursory poke around the Amazon Video section, which returned
several short-form documentaries and films from these partners.
Rumors have swirled for months now about a live Amazon TV package,
focusing on the idea that CEO Jeff Bezos was coming after the TV
industry. They bid for the streaming rights to NFL’s Thursday Night
Football package (Twitter ended up snagging them); inked
a deal with the NFL to exclusively run a new NFL Films docuseries, “All
or Nothing” (free with ads for all Amazon customers); and dipped into
live TV with their own nightly fashion show “Style Code Live.”
But put together with the acquisition of live video-game streaming site Twitch in 2014 and their “unbundling” of Prime Video
from the larger Prime service, it’s more apparent now that merely being
another TV company was far too small potatoes for Bezos. They want to
be a one-stop shop for video of all kinds: live, bite-sized, long-form,
feature-length and, perhaps most importantly, global.
It goes beyond video, of course, and even
beyond figuring out a way to stake a claim on possibly billions of ad
dollars. Amazon has created an actual one-stop general shop for
consumers, and a paradise of an ad environment for marketers. You can
watch a branded video produced by Machinima, order the game touted in
the video while in the same browser tab, have it delivered via Amazon
Prime, and then stream yourself playing it on Twitch. It’s only a wonder
Amazon Video Direct took until 2016 to happen.
Post a Comment