Amazon launched its on-demand music streaming service on Wednesday and now it is available for purchase. Called Amazon Music Unlimited, it is being touted as a tough competitor to Apple Music, Spotify and the likes and the highlight of the service is its integration with the Echo devices of Amazon.
The streaming service has been designed to go well with Amazon's Echo device, reports The Verge. Apart from this, numerous other things have also been done but the one that is expected to entice customers is pricing. It is cheaper than Apple Music or Spotify as Amazon Prime members can avail it for $7.99 per month or $79 a year. Those who own the Echo device can get it for just $3.99 a month.
Coming to the features, it offers millions of songs through its library. There is recommendation engine and newly designed apps for iOS, Android, Sonos and desktop too. However, the main attraction is the Echo device compatibility and Alexa voice assistant. Echo owners get to enjoy Amazon Music Unlimited at a discounted price and they can also request songs from the service through voice command.
As for Alexa, it plays music depending on requested mood or time period, finds songs from lyrics snippets, pulls up the most recent song from an artist and does much more. Its new feature- Side-by-Side also deserves special mention as it brings together artist commentary with selected tracks from their catalog. Amazon has said that the feature has been launched with artists like Jason Aldean, Norah Jones, One Republic and more.
In future, other names would also be included and as more people use it, the response and suggestions of the service would also get better. Vice President Steve Boom has said that voice integration, ease of use, and recommendations technology are the main differentiators for the service as of now, and the company does not have any firm stance on full-on exclusives or collaboration with any artist.
It is worth mentioning here that Apple Music relies on album exclusives to draw customers while Spotify uses its intelligent music recommendation and discovery as the USPs.
