Amazon's Plan To Storm the Cable Industry's Castle

Randy Davis sends analysis of Amazon's acquisition of Twitch.tv, a move that indicates higher ambitions than simply another avenue for putting products in front of consumers. The Daily Herald think this is a sign Amazon is bulking up for a fight with cable companies, strengthening is bargaining position for getting (and maintaining) access to subscribers. "There are very few places in the U.S. where these four giant carriers allow independent networks carrying traffic from the data centers run by Amazon (and future Twitch.tv successors) to put that data on the carriers' controlled networks."

A related article at the NY Times argues Amazon is "betting on content," not wanting to fall behind the surge of new media productions from companies like Netflix. "There is a huge land grab for nontraditional models of programming. DreamWorks Animation bought AwesomenessTV, a popular YouTube channel, last year, and in March, Disney snatched up Maker Studios, a video supplier for YouTube, while Peter Chernin, formerly president of News Corporation, has invested in Crunchyroll, a streaming hub of anime. All of these deals are about content, but they are also a hedge, a way of exploring other production protocols that don’t involve prominent stars, agents and expensive producers." A different piece at The Motley Fool takes the acquisition as confirmation Amazon is developing its own ad network.

Subscribers?

[HalAtWork]

Sorry, you lost me at "subscribers". I am not going to subscribe to anything full of ads, or that may be full of ads in the future. I'm definitely not going to subscribe to receive user generated content either. This ex-battered cable wife is not making the same mistake.

Re:Subscribers?

[i kan reed]

And yet plenty of people are on huluPlus already.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Easy solution

[tomhath]

There's nothing on TV worth watching anyway. Just turn it off.

Re:Home Internet

[mrchaotica]

And people subscribe to VOD services such as Netflix to view 90 minute toy ads such as The Wizard.

That's specious and you know it. Nobody has to watch The Wizard, the vast majority of Netflix's content doesn't have product placement, and Netflix can't do anything about it anyway (except maybe exclude the show entirely).

Shows on Netflix don't have added, separate ads, and that's the important thing.

Russian revolution?

[Dega704]

Part of me screams for Amazon to mercilessly crush the cable companies and salt their fields. The more reasonable side of me worries we would wind up trading one overpowered corporate overlord for another. It won't stop me from grabbing popcorn and enjoying the show either way, though; just to satisfy the bloodlust against these bastards.

Re:Russian revolution?

[phantomfive]

It's more than Amazon: Google, Microsoft, AOL, etc are all plotting how to do this.

Video advertisements are huge revenue generators, which is why every crappy website (including Slashdot) now is trying to find a place for them, and ideally generate video content. Some of these companies (Amazon, AOL, Hulu) are trying to create full episodic content, so they can generate even more revenue.

Remember:
Advertizers = revenue (or customers).
Users = product (or views).
Content = honey that attracts the users.