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Amazon planning a standalone app for sports content

According to a source with firsthand knowledge of the project, Amazon is developing a stand-alone app for streaming sports material, the Information stated on Wednesday.

Amazon Inc. is planning to create a standalone streaming platform that is exclusively focused on sports after experiencing tremendous success in the video streaming sector.

One of the main draws for cable TV consumers who are switching to streaming platforms in sports. This explains why there is fierce competition among streaming services for the sports streaming market. As more Americans migrate from pay TV memberships to streaming apps, sports continue to be one of the tops draws for live viewing.

The action will probably go hand in hand with Amazon’s efforts to increase its focus on sports content via its Prime Video service, a crucial avenue for luring customers to its e-commerce platform.

At the moment, sports coverage is covered by an Amazon Prime Video subscription, which costs $14.99 USD each month. According to the source, Amazon would either keep offering the same package price or start charging customers a separate monthly subscription to receive sports content.

The business last year successfully negotiated an 11-year contract for the only media rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” which will start in 2023.

In order to better compete with the leader in sports streaming, Walt Disney Co., Amazon already has the rights to stream events like the National Football League’s Thursday Night Football franchise and Premier League soccer matches in the UK.

A multi-year agreement to exclusively stream the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package of events in the United States was also signed last week by YouTube, a division of Alphabet Inc.

According to the article, it was unclear when Amazon would launch the sports app or if it would proceed with the plan. To meet growing costs and a decline in demand as individuals and businesses cut down on spending due to inflation anxiety, the corporation has been examining unproductive business segments and has laid off some employees.

The development of a stand-alone sports app by Amazon suggests that the business is looking to explore new avenues for monetizing its live sports investments.

It wouldn’t be shocking if the firm intended to charge a separate membership price for sports coverage with this separate app given the high costs of streaming rights.

Additionally, Amazon can choose to provide a different subscription tier with access to its sports content.

Since other tech behemoths have also signed sports streaming agreements, Amazon isn’t the only significant corporation seeking to maintain its investment in live sports programming.

In a historic streaming deal last week, Google’s YouTube acquired the NFL Sunday Ticket. The rights to Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer games, on the other hand, have been acquired by Apple.

Walt Disney Co. currently dominates the sports streaming business, but once Amazon enters the space with its resources, we should expect some fierce competition.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Amazon starts ‘Prime Air’ drone delivery in California and Texas

About two years after receiving permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration, Amazon has begun deploying drones to deliver packages in Texas and California. Prior to Christmas, the retail behemoth delivered products to customers’ backyards in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, according to ARS Technica. This was done using Amazon Prime Air, the company’s new drone delivery service.

Using its hexagonal MK27-2 delivery drone with six propellers, Amazon stated on its website that the new service aimed to deliver products to customers’ homes within an hour.

Amazon Air spokesperson Natalie Banke noted, “Our aim is to safely introduce our drones to the skies. We are starting in these communities and will gradually expand deliveries to more customers over time.”

In addition to filing Final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision filings for Lockeford on November 14 and College Station on December 12, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Amazon Part 135 authority to send items by drone in 2020.

Amazon Launches Inspire, a TikTok-Style Shopping Feed

In contrast to College Station, Texas, which is a medium-sized city 100 miles northwest of Houston and is home to Texas A&M, Lockeford, California, a rural community 50 miles southeast of Sacramento, has just around 3,500 residents. Residents of each town may register and place orders, and Amazon will let consumers in other areas know when delivery drones are accessible where they are when it is.

According to the most current filings, Amazon’s deliveries will be possible 3.73 miles from its delivery center.

The company claimed that their drones would arrive at the chosen delivery site, hover at a “safe height,” and then “safely” deliver the package before ascending to the air.

Amazon had stated in a previous statement this year, “Lockeford residents will play an important role in defining the future. Their feedback about Prime Air, with drones delivering packages in their backyards, will help us create a service that will safely scale to meet the needs of customers everywhere.”

Customers will receive tracking details and an approximate delivery time after placing their order, at which point the drone will deliver the package to their backyard. According to Amazon, the drones’ six propellers and purposeful hexagonal design are intended to increase stability and reduce high-frequency sound waves.

Despite the fact that the MK27-2 delivery drones are programmed to avoid obstacles like chimneys and fly autonomously, Amazon claims it still uses people to oversee deliveries at the moment.

Safety will remain a priority, especially in light of certain difficulties Amazon encountered when building its drone delivery program, such as crashes. According to Insider and Bloomberg, one mishap at its test facility in Pendleton, Oregon involved a drone that plummeted 160 feet and started a brush fire that covered 25 acres.

Currently, Amazon is developing a new, allegedly safer MK30 drone, which should be usable in 2024. It should be more capable of withstanding high temperatures and mild rain, be smaller and lighter than MK27-2 delivery drones, and travel farther.

There are numerous companies developing their own drone delivery systems, including Amazon. Walmart and Alphabet debuted their own versions in specific regions last year for a limited audience.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Amazon Launches Inspire, a TikTok-Style Shopping Feed

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

Amazon.com Inc. has introduced a feed Inspire, modeled after TikTok that will enable customers to purchase goods from a selected feed of images and videos.

The newest tech business to attempt to copy TikTok is Amazon. The world’s largest online retailer debuted Inspire on Thursday. Inspire is a short-form video and picture stream that enables users to browse and purchase things from content made by influencers, businesses, and other users.

According to Amazon, Inspire will progressively roll out to US users through December and is exclusively accessible through the Amazon Shopping mobile app.

The launch comes after testing conducted earlier this year when it was discovered that Amazon was exploring a TikTok-like shopping stream in its app, which at the time had a separate navigation button at the bottom.

The Inspire feed now will require tapping a light bulb icon rather than the diamond logo that was observed in testing. According to Amazon, as Inspire gathers more information about the user’s preferences by monitoring their engagement and likes, the feed will eventually become more individually tailored.

In order to further enhance the product, the retailer intends to add more shoppable elements to Inspire as well as extra in-app functionality and content.

Mae Badiyan, Practically Pursia, and other Amazon Influencers have already been invited to post on Inspire by the corporation. The Amazon Influencer Program will allow the creators to profit from user purchases.

Amazon noted, “Inspire was designed to make it easy to explore new products, discover ideas, and seamlessly shop content created by other customers, influencers, and brands they love.”

Inspire, which specializes in short-form video content but also supports photographs, functions somewhat like a cross between Instagram and TikTok. Similar to Instagram, one may double-tap and give a red heart “like”. Scrolling Inspire is also similar to TikTok’s vertical video feed, where users may swipe up and down.

Amazon has been attempting to make it simpler for customers to explore products rather than only search for specific items, as the company has traditionally used static product photos and information to create a unified catalog. Despite these efforts, the majority of clients leave the vast internet marketplace quickly.

When it comes to combining product discovery and purchase under one roof, Amazon is perhaps one of the few businesses that might meaningfully challenge TikTok. The problem is convincing customers to make purchases using the short-form video app, but TikTok has already demonstrated its ability to generate sales of everything from cleaning supplies to makeup.

Despite partial bans on the platform in a number of USA states due to cybersecurity concerns, TikTok also seems to be stepping into the e-commerce market.

As it looks to establish its own product fulfillment facilities, the Chinese video-sharing site may directly compete with Amazon in the US, according to an October Axios article. The report stated that TikTok might be considering e-commerce as a potential key source of revenue based on recent job postings that have been listed.

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Jeff Bezos Warns of Economic Recession, Advises People To Avoid Expensive Purchases

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

Amazon founder and Billionaire Chief Executive officer, Jeff Bezos, has advised customers and owners of small businesses to postpone major purchases in advance of the holiday period.

He said that he can tell that the economy doesn’t really look good in recent times right in a CNN sit-down interview released on Monday after reporter Chloe Melas asked if the economy was going through a recession.

Jeff Bezos claimed that if we aren’t in a recession right now, we are very probably to enter one very soon.

“Take some risk off the table, keep some dry powder on hand…. Just a little bit of risk reduction could make the difference for that small business, if we do get into even more serious economic problems. You’ve got to play the probabilities a little bit,” Bezos was quoted as saying.

“If you’re an individual considering to purchase a big-screen TV, you might want to wait, hold onto your money, and see what transpires. The same is true with a new automobile, refrigerator, or whatever else. Just remove some risk from the equation,” he added.
Source: tribuneindia.com

It is undoubtedly not the suggestion you hoped to hear out from a person who owns and manages the e-commerce website which pervades Black Friday sales year after year, as well as it is equally hugely profitable Cyber Monday sale a few days later.

Jeff Bezos’ suggestion came not long after The New York Times disclosed that Amazon intends to lay off about 10,000 employees, many from its Alexa, sales, and human resources sections, in one of the company’s largest layoffs in history.

So, it appears that Bezos will be pinching pennies at the cost of thousands of employees, but likely not his wallet. In another section of the interview, Bezos bragged about how he intended to give away his massive wealth, planning to announce a 100 million USD donation to songster and philanthropist Dolly Parton.

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

Amazon provides Prime Members access to 100 Million Songs and more features

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Sandhya Gupta

When Amazon Prime first came out, it was a service that offered customers cheaper or free access to options for faster shipping. As the Prime members increased, the company also began introducing new features like access to its streaming video and music services.

Amazon revealed a new perk for its Prime members that may tempt some users away from competing services like Apple Music or Spotify.

There is good news for Amazon Prime members. Amazon will now provide 100 million songs in shuffle mode to Amazon Prime subscribers. Although Amazon Prime members do not have unlimited access to music on demand, shuffle mode does provide access to the whole collection.

Users can make playlists that are customized to their individual listening preferences and the songs are ad-free. Any artist, album, or playlist can be put on shuffle. This suggests that users must repeatedly skip through a huge number of tracks before finding the ones they want.

Amazon noted that “Prime members will now be able to stream more music than ever before. We’ve expanded the Amazon Music catalog for Prime members to include more than 100 million songs—up from 2 million—entirely ad-free.

Prime members can explore music and podcasts based on their likes; shuffle play any artist, album, or playlist in the catalog; and stream a collection of All-Access playlists tailored to personalized listening preferences on demand and available to download for offline listening.”

The company revealed that it will now provide Prime members with a complete music catalog with 100 million songs, as opposed to the earlier, more constrained selection of just 2 million songs, and will make the majority of the most popular podcasts on its site available without ads.

The move is a direct jab at rivals in the streaming music industry, particularly Spotify, which has been entering the podcast sector in an effort to increase revenue. However, despite paying for the service, Spotify’s paying subscribers are growing impatient with the fact that they still have to listen to podcast advertisements.

Amazon believes that the combination of a full music catalog and the promise of ad-free podcasts from Amazon Music will make it a strong substitute. Moreover, the Amazon Music app is getting a makeover, and a new “Podcast Previews” feature will enable users to listen to brief snippets in order to find new podcasts they might enjoy.

Recently, the company announced the availability of auto-generated, synced transcripts on a few podcasts for US users. For certain Amazon Originals podcast episodes, transcripts are available.

This is an excellent move by Amazon, given both Apple and Spotify indicated that they would look into raising the prices for its streaming services.

Amazon runs the online music store and streaming service known as Amazon Music. In January 2008, it became the first music store to offer music from numerous independent artists as well as the four major record labels (EMI, Universal, Warner, and Sony BMG) without digital rights management (DRM).

Sandhya Gupta

I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.

Reliance set to launch JioMarket, Govt looks to table new data bill soon.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

The Government is looking to table a brand-new bill in the upcoming parliament winter session or practically in the approaching budget session confirmed by senior government officials, after retreating from the former version of the bill on data protection. However, policy experts reprimanded the unending delays in passing a much-needed data law. Reliance Industries has initiated direct-to-consumer brands and onboarding independent sellers for its distinct marketplace platform. It would be known as JioMarket.

This letter includes:

Reliance Jio initiates roping in sellers for business in the marketplace.
Cloudtail opposes the validity of CCI raids.
IT firms are FY23 fresher hiring estimates.

Govt Looks To Table New Data Bill Soon

The timeframe for public discussions on the new data bill could be declared by the end of August. The ministry of electronics and IT is at an advanced stage with the draft of the comprehensive framework stated by a senior officer.

The government is considering three aspects that will establish the new legislation – the national data governance framework, the new bill on data protection, and the new IT Act.

The previous version of the bill was withdrawn due to its outdated ways. That’s why officials are looking to conclude the new data bill.

One of the officials stated that since one of the three aspects, the framework for national data governance, which accords with supervising data that is non-personal- is nearly ready, with the public discussions completed on its draft, the other aspects are currently, left to be concluded.

The other government officials said the future budget session could be a more “ realistic target” considering the data bill will need extensive industry discussion and meticulous drafting.

Privacy and policy specialists who had labeled the previous bill as debatable have stated the new bill should be flexible with the judgement of puttaswamy, which made privacy an elemental right while engraving drafting.

“It has been close to 10 years since the AP Shah committee report on privacy, five years since the Puttaswamy judgement, and four years since the Srikrishna committee report (on privacy legislation),” said Apar Gupta, executive director at Internet Freedom Foundation.

“They all signal urgency for a data protection law and surveillance reforms. Each day lost causes more injury and harm… It’s not about getting a perfect law, but any law at this point.”
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Reliance Set To Launch JioMarket

Reliance Industries has initiated direct-to-consumer brands and onboarding independent sellers for its distinct marketplace platform. It would be known as JioMarket.

It is decided to uncover Jiomarket in the upcoming weeks so that it can initiate operating it during the launching and a presence of about 30,000 pin codes, said one of the sources.

The corporation has disclosed messages with merchants it is searching to onboard, which ET has rechecked.

“With this, Reliance is aiming to disrupt the ecommerce marketplace ecosystem in the same way that Jio disrupted telecom or JioMart disrupted egrocery,” it said in the communication, asking vendors to fill a form to submit details for onboarding.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Amidst the others, it has also sought information on the prime-selling Amazon (SKUs) stokes keeping units from the traders who want to enter the marketplace.

The egrocery platform, JioMart is largely operated by Reliance Retail as a trader. It will operate as it is continuously.

Amazon Alumni Lead Effort

The prior Amazon executive Sandeep Varaganti is leading this marketplace business. He was chief of Prione Business Service provider in the past – the erstwhile joint venture between NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Venture and Amazon. Prione was the parent company of Cloudtail which was one of the biggest sellers on Amazon, India Once.

Another former Amazon executive, Samir Ratanajnkar, is also involved in creating JioMarket.

Suhani Jain

Amazon

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