Photo Credit: Gizmodo
Are you an Amazon Prime Music user who has dreamed of the service offering more comprehensive streaming music? If you answered yes to this, CEO Jeff Bezos has heard your prayers. According to the New York Post, Bezos is preparing to expand his digital commerce empire with a "Spotify-killer" streaming service that would "ape streaming music market leaders Spotify and Apple Music."The yet-to-be-named service will reportedly utilize the standard $9.99 a month payment plan, but it is also considering a discount plan that would bundle in Amazon's Echo, the remote speaker that answers to voice commands. Gizmodo speculated that since Amazon is the number-one seller of vinyl in the United States, an innovative pairing of digital music and vinyl releases could be just the push that the company needs to make it as a robust music retailer.Steve Boom, Amazon's VP of digital music, thinks the platform's outreach and ubiquitous branding would be a great benefit to anyone trying to broaden their audiences: "if I'm an artist and I want to reach fans of my music," said Boom in a recent interview with Billboard, "and I recognize that people like to interact with music in different ways, we're really the only place that touches all of the different formats."While this could very well be the case, Amazon's last foray into a new market crashed and burned when it released its first smartphone, the Fire, which racked up abysmal reviews. Production ceased months after its initial released date.One of the most cited reasons for its failure? Late entry into an established market.