Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program brings other streaming services to one place
Amazon Prime customers will be getting even more benefits to their subscription. Amazon has just announced its new Streaming Partners Program where other streaming video providers can sell their service through Prime.
This is basically a one-stop-shop for most streaming services. Prime customers will be able to pay for other streaming services all in the same place. Also, they will get them at discounted prices for being Prime customers.
The first two companies that will offer their services are Showtime and Starz. Each are available for $8.99 a month after a free trial. Some other launch partners are A&E’s Lifetime Movie Club, AMC’s Shudder and SundanceNow Doc Club, Gaia, the Smithsonian, and more.
Michael Paull, Vice President of Digital Video at Amazon said:
“The way people watch TV is changing, and customers need an easier way to subscribe to and enjoy multiple streaming subscriptions. With the Streaming Partners Program, we’re making it easy for video providers to reach highly engaged Prime members, many of whom are already frequent streamers, and we’re making it easier for viewers to watch their favorite shows and channels.”
Also, there are other benefits like, latest episodes available simultaneous with broadcast, one Watchlist across all subscriptions, unified voice search and ASAP on Fire TV, and much more.
Amazon says this partnership with other streaming services will benefit them as well. They will no longer have to deal with billing, handling credit cards, or dealing with customers. The services will also be able to run on any device with the Amazon Video app installed.
Press Release:
Amazon Prime members can now add SHOWTIME, STARZ and dozens more video subscriptions to their Prime membership
Now, video providers can reach a new set of highly engaged viewers with Amazon responsible for driving subscriber acquisition
Prime customers benefit from free trials, self-service cancellation of any subscription and special Prime member pricing—subscriptions for SHOWTIME and STARZ are only $8.99 per month
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dec. 8, 2015– (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon today launched the Streaming Partners Program, an over-the-top streaming subscription program for video providers that enables them to reach tens of millions of Prime members. With the Streaming Partners Program, video providers have access to a highly engaged streaming audience, and viewers have a more convenient way to manage their streaming subscriptions.
The Streaming Partners Program offers many benefits for video providers. Amazon is responsible for:
- Driving all subscriber acquisition
- Making subscribing friction-free—credit cards are already on file
- Handling all customer service
- Managing all billing
- Managing credit card expirations
- Serving your content through high-quality, reliable streaming infrastructure
- Managing compatibility across hundreds of devices
The Streaming Partners Program offers many benefits for viewers, including:
- Free trials on all subscriptions
- Special Prime member pricing
- Latest episodes available simultaneous with broadcast
- Convenience of one account
- One Watchlist across all subscriptions
- Self-service cancellation of any subscription at anytime
- IMDb X-Ray integration
- Unified search and browse across subscriptions
- Unified voice search and ASAP on Fire TV
“The way people watch TV is changing, and customers need an easier way to subscribe to and enjoy multiple streaming subscriptions,” said Michael Paull, Vice President of Digital Video at Amazon. “With the Streaming Partners Program, we’re making it easy for video providers to reach highly engaged Prime members, many of whom are already frequent streamers, and we’re making it easier for viewers to watch their favorite shows and channels.”
“We’re excited to work with Amazon to offer our streaming service featuring all of our award-winning original series, plus our exclusive sports, news-making documentaries and blockbuster movies, to millions of Prime users,” said David Nevins, President, Showtime Networks Inc. “By marryingSHOWTIME with the powerhouse retail capabilities of Amazon, we continue to greatly expand our footprint, making sure our service is available to new subscribers whenever and however they want to watch us.”
“STARZ is excited to offer subscriptions to our premium hit shows like ‘Outlander’ and ‘Power,’ as well as our thousands of movies, to Amazon Prime customers,” said Chris Albrecht, CEO of Starz said. “This is a terrific product for customers to conveniently navigate their entertainment options quickly, easily and anywhere.”
Initial launch partners include: SHOWTIME, STARZ, A+E Network (Lifetime Movie Club), AMC (Shudder and SundanceNow Doc Club), Gaia, RLJ Entertainment (Acorn TV, Urban Movie Channel, Acacia TV), DramaFever (DramaFever Instant), Tribeca Shortlist, Cinedigm (Dove Channel, Docurama, CONtv), Smithsonian (Smithsonian Earth), IndieFlix (IndieFlix Shorts), Curiosity Stream, Qello Concerts, FlixFling (Cinefest, Nature Vision, Warriors and Gangsters, Dox, Monsters and Nightmares), BroadbandTV (Hooplakidz Plus), DEFY Media (ScreenJunkies Plus), Gravitas (Film Forum, Daring Docs, Fear Factory), and Ring TV Boxing.
To explore the full set of premium content available to Prime members, visitwww.amazon.com/videosubscriptions. To become an Amazon streaming partner, visitwww.amazon.com/streamingpartners.
Today customers will also find a newly designed Amazon Video homepage making it easy for customers to find movies and TV shows available on Prime, available through the Streaming Partners Program, or available to rent or buy.
About Amazon Video
Amazon Video offers customers unlimited access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, including award-winning Amazon Original Series, through Amazon Prime; monthly subscriptions toSHOWTIME, STARZ, and more; and hundreds of thousands of titles including new-release movies and current TV shows for rent or purchase.
The entire range of selection can be instantly accessed through the Amazon Video app on TVs, streaming media players, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablets, or online atAmazon.com/amazonvideo.
Prime Video, included in Amazon Prime, enables Prime members enjoy binge-worthy TV shows including Amazon Original Series airing now such as the multi-Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated series Transparent, the breakout hit The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, the hour-long drama Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling books, the Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman comedy, Mozart in the Jungle, and the comedy created by and starring Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe, in addition to HBO favorites like The Sopranos, True Blood and Girls, and popular primetime series including 24, Downton Abbey, Extant, Falling Skies, Grimm, Hannibal, Justified, Orphan Black, Teen Wolf, The Americans, and Under the Dome. Prime members also have access to an exclusive collection of kids shows now airing including Amazon Original Series’ Annedroids, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street and the Annecy, Annie and multi-Emmy Award-winning Tumble Leaf, as well as popular shows from Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. including SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, Team Umizoomi, and Blue’s Clues. Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/prime.
In addition to tens of thousands of titles to instantly stream on Prime Video, the Amazon Prime membership (www.amazon.com/prime) includes more than one million songs, more than a thousand playlists and hundreds of stations through Prime Music, unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, early access to select Lightning Deals, unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos, and access to borrow from more than 800,000 books for Kindle owners–all for $99 a year.
About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.
Come comment on this article: Amazon’s Streaming Partners Program brings other streaming services to one place
Mozilla announces an end to Firefox OS smartphone development
Competition is often cited as a critical component in the advancement and development of new business ideas, products, and practices, at least in the long-term. While some companies may be self-sufficient, it is often the presence of keen rivals that foster changes. One need only look at how the mobile OS market has evolved in the past decade, though based on today’s news the next one may be somewhat different, albeit it slightly.
At a developer-centered event held earlier in Orlando, Mozilla announced the formal end to its dedicated Firefox OS smartphone platform, stating that it will “stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels” according to Ari Jaaksi, SVP of Connected Devices. The full statement, provided to TechCrunch, was as follows:
We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow.
Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the Web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs. However, we weren’t able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels.
We’ll share more on our work and new experiments across connected devices soon.
It is important to note that Firefox OS is also part of the “Internet of Things (IOT)” and just this past summer Panasonic began to sell smart TVs running on the platform. To this end, while development of smartphones themselves may be finished, this doesn’t necessarily indicate all channels have been switched off.
As Liliputing points out, there is still the theoretical potential of phones that could run Firefox OS in the future, however Mozilla itself seemingly won’t be involved in any such ventures. Given the low sales of the platform however, it would seem unlikely for this to occur. Nonetheless the Wikipedia page for the OS does list several Android devices that have seen ports of the Mozilla operating system, and an Android launcher was even developed just last month.
The end of…what exactly?
Android fans may not be aware of Mozilla’s Firefox OS which was originally conceived back in July 2011 under the name “Boot to Gecko” with the idea being to “pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web…(to) find the gaps that keep web developers from being able to build apps that are – in every way – the equals of native apps built for the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7” according to a post by Mozilla’s Director of Research, Andreas Gal.
The project was formally re-branded Firefox OS thereafter, and announced for global expansion shortly before Mobile World Congress in 2013. aimed at markets in developing countries as well as those interested in low priced and affordable handsets and/or new smartphone users in developed ones. Handset pricing was extremely affordable however the platform failed to gain traction. As Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch describes it:
To differentiate from Android and iOS, Mozilla and its carrier partners focused on a web-first platform, with no native and only web apps. Sales, however, were always poor and the devices themselves failed to ignite a lot of consumer interest, and a number of OEMs cornered the market with a flood of cheap handsets. In a business that depends on economies of scale, it was a failure.
The Fx0
Firefox OS had an unexpected, almost surreal temporary boost in the form of the LG Fx0, a Japan-only device that was announced at the end of last year, and which featured near-flagship level specs. The device was seen as an attempt for the sole carrier that sold it, KDDI au, to try and branch out from the absolute dominance that Android and iOS have among its line-up, something that rival carrier NTT docomo had once been attempting via Samsung’s Tizen.
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The Fx0 had a unique transparent plastic design and was initially available in just three flagship carrier stores around the country. It was priced in-line with mid-to-high end smartphones and, coupled with the “developer focused” appeal of an unknown software platform, seemingly failed to achieve the expectations KDDI presumably had given the smartphone was basically forgotten immediately after.
Those who are interested may wish to read our impressions of the Fx0 here.
Wrap Up
Samsung’s Tizen OS has been gaining some small but sustainable traction in the mobile market.
While Firefox OS, arguably, never posed a threat to Android – even Tizen has only just recently surpassed BlackBerry OS for the #4 mobile OS spot – the loss of a potential competitor is rarely a good thing. In theory, current Firefox OS platform users who will seek to change phones in the future may ultimately wind up purchasing an Android phone, however they may also be swayed by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform given Redmond’s recent decisions to focus on the lower-end market.
Did you ever have a chance to play with Firefox OS? Did you perhaps own a device running it? Are you pleased to learn of it’s demise? We would love to hear your thoughts and comments!
Google Fiber sets its sights on Los Angeles and Chicago
More than six million people might be getting access to Google’s famous 1Gbps internet. Today, Google publicly invited city leaders from both Los Angeles and Chicago to consider bringing Google Fiber to their respective cities.
Long the dream of high bandwidth users fed up with traditional internet service providers, Google Fiber is currently limited to eighteen major cities across the United States. Tech fans nationwide are eager to give the service a spin for themselves, but bringing Fiber to a new area isn’t as easy as turning on a switch. It takes extensive cooperation between Google and city governments, so Google must convince each city that Fiber will bring more benefit than hassle.
See also: Want Google Fiber? The Fiber team tells us how to get it!
Google is pitching that higher internet speeds in Chicago will benefit the 40,000 pre-existing tech jobs in the area, and will probably even lure in a fair amount more. For Los Angeles, and its concern with the entertainment industry, Google is suggesting that faster internet speeds may mean artists and musicians can spend more time on their work and less time dealing with bandwidth issues, possibly shortening the gap between project releases.
This is pleasant marketing work, but really the biggest argument for Google Fiber rests in a simple fact of reality: the future will take place on the internet. If a city hopes to stay engaged and functional throughout this century, investing in better internet infrastructures and faster internet speeds is a must.
Google isn’t guaranteeing Fiber to Chicago and Los Angeles just yet. A lot depends on how city leaders will respond to this offer. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on this development? Are you a Chicago or Los Angeles denizen? What’s your current internet speed like, and what do you stand to gain from Google Fiber? Let us know in the comments!
Next: 10 best android gifts under $50 (2015 holiday gift guide)
Goodbye Nexus 6, you will be missed
Out with the old and in with the new. Google released the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, and immediately started selling the last gen Nexus 6 at a discounted rate. It was only a matter of time before they discontinued it completely, and that day has come.
If you check the Google Store, it says “The Nexus 6 is no longer available for purchase”. Not only that, but the Nexus 6 isn’t even on the main phones page anymore. We doubt Google sold literally every Nexus 6 they had in stock and will probably continue to sell them in other locations like Amazon for the time being.
Come comment on this article: Goodbye Nexus 6, you will be missed
Watch a full boxing match in VR for the first time
You’re probably going to see a lot of virtual reality sports coverage before long, but there’s still a lot of ground left to cover — including, apparently, fisticuffs. Showtime has posted what it says is the first full-length VR video of a boxing match, giving you a 360-degree look at a middleweight championship fight between Daniel Jacobs and Peter Quillin. The footage isn’t quite as immersive as you might like (it’s ringside, not in the thick of the action), but it gives you an above-the-ropes perspective that even the managers wish they had. You won’t see a live VR bout any time soon, but this is still a tantalizing glimpse of what boxing coverage could look like down the road.
Source: Showtime Sports (YouTube)
Facebook’s Security Check comes to Android
Facebook’s account security feature, dubbed Security Check, landed on Android this Tuesday. It allows users to quickly review their current account settings and tighten sharing controls, log out of the network on unused devices, enable login alerts and change their passwords. The service came to Facebook’s desktop version this July and will reportedly arrive on iOS next.
[Image Credit: Getty]
Source: Facebook
Apple Shares New ‘The Future of Television’ Apple TV Ad
Continuing on with its Apple TV promotions, Apple today shared a new Apple TV ad entitled “The Future of Television.” The ad, like other Apple TV ads, features brightly colored television test pattern bars that serve as a background for quick peeks at the TV shows and movies available on the device.
There are glimpses of television shows like The Muppets, The Simpsons, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Game of Thrones. Movies featured include The Martian, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ant Man, Inside Out and The Wizard of Oz.
The ad also highlights the search tools available on the Apple TV, its Siri capabilities, Apple Music, and the tvOS App Store. Several games are featured, including Disney Infinity 3.0 and Guitar Hero. The ad ends with the video title: “The future of television.”
Since its October launch, Apple has been promoting the Apple TV through similar quick ads shown on television, colorful billboards that are displayed across a number of cities, web ads, and a social media campaign.
Apple has been focusing heavily on highlighting the array of content that’s available through the device via its App Store, which is fitting as news just hit today suggesting its own streaming television plans have been shelved. Due to an inability to secure deals for its rumored web-based streaming service, Apple is said to be focusing instead on its tvOS App Store, which serves as a conduit for media companies to sell their content to Apple customers.
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Android 6.0 Marshmallow headed to Moto X Pure Edition on Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular
If you happen to live in the United States and own a Motorola Moto X Pure Edition, there’s a good chance that today is your lucky day. Motorola’s David Schuster has just taken to Google+ to reveal that the company has started to roll out Android 6.0 Marshmallow to the Moto X Pure Edition on Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular. If you’re a Pure Edition owner on any one of these carriers, a Marshmallow update should be headed your way sometime very soon.
In addition to the Pure Edition update, Schuster also says Motorola has started the Android 6 soak test in Brazil and India for the Moto X Play and in Brazil for the Moto X Force.
See also: Android 6.0 Marshmallow updates roundup – December 4, 2015
Motorola has posted a handy changelog detailing what users can expect with their Marshmallow update. If you don’t have time to sift through the full changelog, you can expect to see notable features such as Google Now on Tap, Doze Mode, Android Pay, much-improved volume controls, a revamped application permission system and much, much more.
Are you a Moto X Pure Edition owner on Verizon, Sprint or U.S. Cellular? If so, have you received your update yet? Be sure to let us know in the comment section below!
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Mozilla stops working on Firefox OS smartphones
Mozilla originally launched Firefox OS with dreams of democratizing the smartphone: instead of closed platforms and apps, you’d have an open, web-based framework that anyone could work with. Alas, however, that vision wasn’t meant to be. The organization has announced that it will “stop offering” Firefox OS phones through carriers, effectively putting an end to those phones as a whole. It’s still willing to “experiment” with the software on smart devices — they just won’t be the kind of devices that make phone calls. The team just couldn’t deliver the “best user experience possible” on a handset, Mozilla says.
The move is sad, but not surprising. While Firefox OS did manage to get some traction in a few areas, particularly Africa and South America, it was never especially popular. Its early price advantage quickly evaporated — it’s easy to get a basic Android or Windows phone for less than $100. Moreover, that web-centric Utopia… well, wasn’t. Although the platform did improve by leaps and bounds, it just couldn’t keep up with the competition. It was light on features and slow, and most app makers just weren’t interested in taking advantage of Firefox OS when a regular mobile website was often good enough.
As it stands, Mozilla has been scaling back some of its less-than-essential projects. It’s already looking for someone else to take control of its Thunderbird email app, as an example. Like it or not, shedding Firefox OS on phones may be necessary to help Mozilla concentrate on browsers, ad blockers and other things central to its mission.
Source: TechCrunch
Adidas uses plastic ocean waste to create a 3D-printed shoe
Back in June, Adidas revealed a shoe made almost entirely from recycled ocean waste. That product marked the beginning of a partnership between the sportswear firm and Parley, an organization trying to combat ocean pollution worldwide. Now, Adidas is taking this one step further: its new design features a 3D-printed midsole created out of recycled polyester and gillnets, a wall of netting typically used to catch fish. The shoe’s upper part was manufactured with ocean plastic materials as well, Adidas says, making its concept footwear a complete eco-friendly package.Slideshow-346737
Last month Adidas introduced Futurecraft 3D, which kicked off the company’s efforts in 3D printing technology. Right now, there’s no word on when these 3D-printed, recycled shoes will make their way to consumers, but Adidas and Parley both say that’s the ultimate goal.
Source: Adidas
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