Amazon leaps into home entertainment fray with $99 Fire TV

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc made a play for the increasingly crowded home entertainment arena by unveiling the $99 “Fire TV” video and game streaming device on Wednesday, with hopes of boosting its main online retail business over the longer term.

The square device, which just about fits in the palm of one hand, streams content from Netflix Inc, Hulu and other video services – much like Apple TV or Google Inc’s Chromecast.

It also offers a prominent platform for Amazon’s own fast-growing streaming video service as well as its growing slate of original television programs and games. Amazon will also sell a separate controller for gaming that costs $39.99.

Amazon, which has been building its multimedia presence to tap the growing appetite for digital media, is now jumping headlong into the heated competition for consumers’ attention and an estimated $70 billion TV ad market. It took the wraps off the Fire TV at a rare Apple-style media event in New York.

Analysts were split on Amazon’s prospects. Some said its strategy to pitch the Fire TV as an option for casual gamers would set the box apart. Others were disappointed Amazon did not undercut its rivals’ prices in keeping with its pricing strategy on the original Kindle Fire tablet.

“They created a product we didn’t need,” said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.

The Fire TV competes in a market that is set to grow by 24 percent this year, Strategy Analytics said. But that’s off a low base: streaming boxes have still not made much of a splash, partly because game consoles from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — not to mention “smart” TVs and DVD players — already stream Netflix and other popular services.

Tech leaders from Microsoft Corp to Apple Inc are vying for space on the TV, the traditional family entertainment center and where Americans used to spend most of their leisure time. That has changed with the advent of the smartphone and tablet.

The device is one of several initiatives by Amazon, one of the world’s largest online retailers, to play a central role in how consumers shop and spend their leisure time. Its projects range from building more warehouses to expand its same-day delivery service to developing original television shows such as the political comedy “Alpha House” starring John Goodman.

If Fire TV takes off, it could help shape the way consumers shop online. Fire TV viewers may eventually be able to use their remote to buy a product directly off a commercial, analysts said, as Amazon’s multimedia and online retail businesses become even more integrated.

“The company will eventually want to help you buy things in the living room,” Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said. “Only Amazon can piece that entire experience together in the living room and though we don’t see evidence of that ambition here today, we should assume Amazon knows this and is planning on it.”

While the company tried to one-up existing streaming boxes with voice-activation and a line-up of games from publishers like Electronic Arts and Walt Disney Co, some remained doubtful the Fire TV will make waves upon debut.

Johnny come lately
Amazon’s biggest previous foray into tech hardware — the Kindle e-reader — succeeded because it was an early entrant in a nascent market. But the Fire TV is a latecomer to two markets that rivals had fought over for years — gaming and home entertainment.

Amazon has to wedge itself into a market split fairly evenly between various nascent technologies, all of which are challenging cable companies’ traditional death-grip on TV viewing.

But the company promised however that Fire TV, available now on Amazon.com, would be faster and easier to use than Apple TV, Google’s Chromecast or Roku Inc’s streaming video device.

It can predict what the user will watch and cue it up, Kindle unit vice president Peter Larsen said. It also has a feature that uses data from IMDB to identify the music on screen as well as the actors and their filmography as they exit and enter the screen on TV.

“When we look at the living room, how do we make the complexity disappear?” Larsen said at a rare, Apple-style New York product launch event.

Fire TV’s remote features a microphone that enables voice-activated search. Fire TV is integrated with Hulu Plus so users can see Amazon shows from their Hulu account, and Amazon said it may bring in other partners soon.

By next month, Fire TV users will be able to play thousands of video games. Amazon decided to develop the device after reading customer complaints on its website about lagging performance, cumbersome search and closed “ecosystems” on rival set-top boxes.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to buy the Washington Post

Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos will buy the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million in a surprise deal that ends the Graham family’s 80 years of ownership and hands one of the country’s most influential publications to the tech entrepreneur.

Bezos, hailed by many as a visionary who helped transform Internet retail, called his acquisition a personal endeavor and reassured Post employees and readers he will preserve the paper’s journalistic tradition, while driving innovation.

The acquisition, the latest in a flurry of recent media deals including the New York Times Co’s sale of the Boston Globe for $70 million, is a further indication of the unprecedented challenges newspapers face as advertising revenue and readership decline.

Shares of the Washington Post Co climbed more than 5 percent to $599.85 after hours – their highest level in almost five years.

“I understand the critical role the Post plays in Washington, DC and our nation, and the Post’s values will not change,” Bezos said in a letter addressed to employees and published on the newspaper’s website.

“There will of course be change at the Post over the coming years. That’s essential and would have happened with or without new ownership,” he added. “We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.”

Bezos, who has built Seattle-based Amazon.com into a shopping and online technology force over the last two decades, made a small foray into media earlier this year with a small investment in Internet news site Business Insider.

The Washington Post, home to journalists as the “Watergate” team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is among the rapidly dwindling number of U.S. newspapers with a profitable business – a function of the rapid migration of readers to Internet and other digital media sources.

Warren Buffett owns a slice of its parent company, Washington Post Co, whose operating income has plummeted almost 40 percent since 2008, to $146.2 million in 2012.

“I doubt it is a financially oriented investment for him as much as a chance to play a more important role as a steward of an important public trust/asset,” said James Barksdale, President of Atlanta investment firm Equity Investment Corp.

Barksdale said his firm did not own Washington Post shares because he thought they traded higher than he thought justified, “probably due to the Buffett halo,” he added.

Bezos will buy the Post along with other newspaper assets from the Washington Post Co. Amazon.com is to be kept separate from the Post deal, according to the Washington Post.

The deal, which caught many industry watchers by surprise, was arranged in private by Allen & Co. It comes on the heels of near-unprecedented media deal activity this year, with the Globe transaction announced just over the weekend, the Tribune Co hiving off its publishing and broadcasting businesses and the Los Angeles Times reportedly up for sale.

Graham family relinquish their claim

Washington Post Chairman and Chief Executive Donald E. Graham, whose family owns the paper, explained his decision to part ways with the publication, which will continue to be headed on a daily basis by CEO Katharine Weymouth.

“As the newspaper business continued to bring up questions to which we have no answers, Katharine and I began to ask ourselves if our small public company was still the best home for the newspaper. Our revenues had declined seven years in a row,” Graham said in his letter to employees.

“Jeff Bezos’ proven technology and business genius, his long-term approach and his personal decency make him a uniquely good new owner for the Post.”

The transaction covers The Washington Post and other publishing businesses, including the Express newspaper, The Gazette Newspapers, Southern Maryland Newspapers, Fairfax County Times, El Tiempo Latino and Greater Washington Publishing.

Bezos is the world’s 19th richest person with a fortune of $25.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. His other major personal project is called Blue Origin, which aims to be one of the first non-government funded ventures to send people and cargo into space, potentially winning lucrative contracts that were once fulfilled by NASA.

Bezos has already spent millions of dollars on this project, with millions more in the pipeline.

He did not elaborate in great detail on his motivations behind his latest deal on Monday. But in 2009, when asked at the debut of the Kindle 2 whether the electronic-reader could help print media, Bezos said he thought there were “genuine opportunities” to save journalism.

“And we’re excited about helping with that,” he added, according to the International Herald Tribune.

source: interaksyon.com

ONLINE SHOPPING

EBAY Inc., once a scrappy auction site for mom and pop sellers, is enticing some of the world's largest retailers by arguing it can help them compete better against e-commerce leader Amazon.com, Inc.

EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe and other executives have been telling retailers that Amazon is their enemy, while eBay is a friend because, unlike Amazon, it holds no inventory.

Amazon buys products wholesale, stores them in inventory, and sells them to consumers at higher prices – like all retailers.

EBay says it just matches buyers and sellers.

That message is sinking in, especially among brick and mortar retailers that are losing market share to Amazon.

''As retailers look for new vehicles for growth eBay becomes a natural partner – a better partner than Amazon,'' said Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research.

When RadioShack Corp., reported a surprise quarterly loss last month, Chief Executive Jim Gooch told analysts that the electronics retailer had set up an eBay storefront to help the company reach new customers online.

Barnes & Noble, Toys ''R'' Us, GNC Holdings, Aeropostale, and Neiman Marcus are among other big retailers that now have storefronts on eBay.

Best Buy Co., Inc., sells mobile phones and wireless plans on eBay.

On Monday, eBay said it was testing a same-day delivery service called eBay Now with Target Corp., the second-largest US retailer, and other big retailers including Macy's, Inc., Nordstrom, Inc., and Walgreen Co.

Amazon offers same-day delivery in some areas already.

The foundations of eBay Now rest on Milo, a start-up eBay acquired in late 2010 which lets merchants upload in-store inventory onto eBay's online marketplace. When shoppers search on eBay now, they see what online sellers are offering, but also which nearby physical stores carry the product.

More than 50,000 stores in the United States have uploaded inventory to eBay, via Milo, including major retailers Home Depot, Inc., Ikea, Lowe's Companies, Inc., Sears Holdings Corp., and J.C. Penney Company, Inc.

''It's simple: location, location, location,'' said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie. ''Sellers have to go to where the buyers are.''

EBay has more than 100 million active shoppers on its online marketplace, he noted.

''Retailers don't have those kinds of numbers coming to their sites and buying,'' Schachter said. ''They would love to only sell through their own site, but they have to go where the buyers are, and many are on eBay.''

Amazon has a lot more active customers – about 180 million – but some retailers steer clear still.

Barnes & Noble, which has been hammered by Amazon, has had an eBay storefront since late 2010 and mostly uses it to sell refurbished Nook gadgets. Toys and books were added in May 2011.

''EBay has been an exceptional partner, working with Barnes & Noble to effectively promote Nook to its massive user base,'' said Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating. ''Amazon is a competitor. We don't sell on Amazon and have no plans to do so.''

Toys ''R'' Us does not sell on Amazon either. More than a decade ago, the largest toy retailer had exclusive rights to supply some toys on Amazon's website. That partnership ended in litigation and Amazon is now a leading toy retailer in its own right.

''It's the worst-kept secret in the retail industry,'' said Mulpuru. ''When you partner with Amazon, they are looking at your data, learning your business and have ambition to get into every category.''

Among the 100 largest retailers in the United States, most are choosing eBay over Amazon, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell on both online marketplaces.

An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.

Amazon's marketplace for third-party sellers is growing rapidly and Wingo said that would not be happening if all retailers thought Amazon was the enemy.

The lure of Amazon's massive customer base is still powerful for many.

''We take any chance of getting new eyeballs and Amazon is just so large in the world of e-commerce,'' said Jerry Deboer, senior vice president of marketing at Jos. A. Bank, which has Amazon and eBay stores.

RadioShack also has both, and big retailers including Office Max and Sephora run Amazon stores.

Adding large sellers to eBay's marketplace helps the company in several ways.

EBay takes a cut of sales, so higher-volume sellers may help the company generate more revenue and profit.

EBay and retailers declined to discuss fees. However, eBay charges less for top sellers and negotiates individual deals with the biggest and best, according to Wingo.

EBay has struggled in the past because some of the products on its site were listed poorly or of questionable quality, and customer service from small sellers is not always what it could be. Big retailers are more likely to sell higher-quality products, categorize them more and provide better service.

DIFFERENT SHOPPERS

Retailers say eBay storefronts attract different shoppers than the ones who come to their own websites and physical stores.

EBay shoppers often search for deals, so some retailers use eBay to sell end-of-season or outlet products at lower prices.

Neiman Marcus' eBay storefront sells apparel, shoes and accessories under the Last Call brand, its outlet business.

EBay provides data to retailers to help them check if the shoppers who come to their eBay storefronts overlap with their existing customer base, according to Michael Jones, vice president of merchant development at eBay.

''By and large, people see this as a very significant incremental channel for them,'' Jones said.

In early 2010, eBay started including storefront inventory in results when shoppers searched on the website's front page.

That has helped retailers place their products in front of more consumers, according to Jo

source: mb.com.ph

Amazon's Next Conquest: Your Closet

MANILA, Philippines — Seattle— Amazon is so serious about its next big thing that it hired three women to do nothing but try on size 8 shoes for its Web reviews. Full time.

The online retailer is shooting 3,000 fashion images a day in a photo studio using patent-pending technology.

And it is happily losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on free shipping—and, on apparel, even free returns—to keep its shoppers coming back.

Having wounded the publishing industry, slashed pricing in electronics, and made the toy industry quiver, Amazon is taking on the high-end clothing business in its typical way: go big and spare no expense.

“It’s Day 1 in the category,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said in a recent interview. Though characteristically tight-lipped on bottom-line details, Bezos said the company was making a “significant” investment in fashion as it tried to convince designer brands that it wanted to work with them, not against them.

The traditional retail world—and many major brands that want no part of Amazon—are gearing up to fight for their lives.

“It has the latitude to set prices and charge whatever it wants,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester Research, said of Amazon. “That is a huge threat for brands.”

Amazon has sold clothing for years. But recently it has focused on signing on hundreds of contemporary and high-end brands, including Michael Kors, Vivienne Westwood, Catherine Malandrino, Jack Spade and Tracy Reese, and it continues to prowl for more. On Monday, some of Amazon’s muscle was on display as the company sponsored, and live-streamed, the Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the accompanying exhibit. Bezos, the event’s honorary chairman, said he was advised by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor, to wear a pocket square with his Tom Ford tuxedo (which is not available on Amazon). He did so.

Amazon’s decision to go after high fashion is about plain economics. Because Amazon’s costs are about the same whether it is shipping a $10 book or a $1,000 skirt, “gross profit dollars per unit will be much higher on a fashion item,” Bezos said, and it already makes money on fashion. While its MyHabit site, started last year, uses a flash-sale model to compete with Gilt Groupe, Bezos says the company’s new effort is not about selling clothes at deep discounts but at prices that ensure “the designer brands are happy.”

Amazon has not just size on its side but money. The company has about $5.7 billion in cash and marketable securities, and Bezos has long taken a stance that investing in the business is the best place to use it. The company can afford to do things that some competitors cannot, like hire a bevy of stylists for the website models or investigate replacing the plain brown shipping box with a fancier package for clothes.

Until now, fashion has been one of the few categories that Amazon has tried to dominate without success. In addition to its own site, Amazon bought the shoe site Zappos.com for more than $1 billion in 2009, started the shoe site Endless.com and MyHabit, and bought the boutique Shopbop in 2006.

But many brands stayed away because they said Amazon’s site often looked too commoditized. “It’s not a place where you look at it and are like, ‘Oh, my clothes look and feel really good,”’ said Andy Page, founder of men’s fashion brand Bonobos, which does not sell through Amazon.

Amazon hopes to fix that problem by going luxe. Bezos said Amazon.com’s initial forays into the high end had helped raise apparel sales by triple digits.

Amazon’s considerable computing capability, for example, has been turned to fashion and the analysis of enormous amounts of shopping data. The company has also made a “disproportionate” investment in photography, said Cathy Beaudoin, the president of fashion for Amazon. The photography studio, in Kentucky, can shoot more than two images a minute, allowing the company to post new items daily on the Web that were photographed hours earlier.

Most of all, the company is working to improve its presentation, so far most evidently on MyHabit, which Bezos said represented where Amazon wanted to go with all of its Web design for fashion.

Instead of static product images, for example, models spin and pose to show off the clothing. The model’s body measurements and the clothing measurements are provided to help with sizing. And shopper-friendly advice—does the size 8 shoe run big or small?—is prominent.

The ramp-up has created buzz as the company has hired models, stylists and makeup artists, started using customer data to personalize brand and size search results, and runs the first advertisement campaign ever, in print and outdoors, for the Amazon clothing store.

In the retail clothing world, fears are growing that few will be able to compete with a stepped-up Amazon.

For some brands, the company’s size alone makes an overture from Amazon difficult to reject. “The amount of eyeballs and traffic and retail dollars that are generated through their website” is impressive, said Alex Bhathal, co-president of Raj Manufacturing, which makes licensed swimwear brands like Ella Moss.

Amazon can also offer brands more attractive terms than many other stores. For instance, Amazon does not ask for “markdown money” when items do not sell, or return unsold product to a brand, said Ron Friedman, an accountant at Marcum LLP. who advises brands like James Perse and American Rag.

And to woo brands, Amazon is willing to make big buys. Jason Cauchi, creative director of Dallin Chase, had been selling some merchandise to Amazon’s Shopbop. Recently Amazon said it would buy items from the entire collection for the Amazon.com site, which Cauchi said was a rare offer and difficult to refuse.

A retailer like Amazon would typically pay brands a wholesale price for clothes, then set the retail price itself (although more powerful brands often mandate a minimum retail price).

While brands sell some of the same items to different stores, they are increasingly developing exclusive colors or styles to avoid price-comparison issues. “A manufacturer does not want to kill a business, and the best way to kill a business is to have the same product selling for less on Amazon,” Friedman, the retail accountant, said.

But Bezos said that, despite having taken a low-price approach in other industries, Amazon would not in fashion. “There’s a sophisticated markdown cadence in the fashion industry that we think makes sense and we’re basically following that established approach,” he said.

There are many disbelievers, given Amazon’s history in other industries. Bezos, moreover, has to deal with the fact that he is no fashion guy. Asked in the interview about the brands he was wearing, Bezos could not name the brands of his shirt or shoes. The jeans, he said, were Prada (not available on Amazon); his blue “Jeff” security badge was dangling from them. (NYT)

source: mb.com.ph

Amazon tests mobile in-app purchases: report

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is testing a service that allows tablet users to make purchases through mobile applications, trying to take on Apple and Google in the mobile business, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.

The service being tested allows both subscriptions and purchases within mobile applications, Bloomberg said in a report, citing an app developer in Amazon’s trial.

The world’s largest online retailer has declined to comment.

According to the report, Amazon plans to charge a 30 percent commission to clients for its in-app purchase service, same rate the company charges developers for app sales.

The move will put Amazon more directly at odds with Google and Apple which have been selling items from within downloadable software through their online stores App Store and Google Play.

A lot of apps are free for beginning users to download but in- app purchases are needed to get more advanced use, such as virtual goods and extra features.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is the most popular non-iPad product in the tablet market, but Amazon only has about 1,400 apps in its store. Both Apple and Google now have more than 450,000 apps available in their stores.

According to business information service IHS, the in-app purchases will generate 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2015, up from 970 million dollars in 2011.

source: interaksyon.com