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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Amazon launches YouTube-style video service | Amazon launches YouTube-style video service |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| Amazon is launching a YouTube-style video service allowing its customers to post clips, widening its growing competition with Google across online video. | Amazon is launching a YouTube-style video service allowing its customers to post clips, widening its growing competition with Google across online video. |
| From Tuesday, anyone with an Amazon account can upload videos they have made or own the rights to on to the company’s Video Direct service. | |
| The videos can be free with providers taking a cut of ad revenue, offered for rent or purchase, put on a subscription channel or made available only to people paying for Amazon’s Prime packages. | The videos can be free with providers taking a cut of ad revenue, offered for rent or purchase, put on a subscription channel or made available only to people paying for Amazon’s Prime packages. |
| Users who make the videos available on Prime will be paid based on their performance out of a $1m pot, under a system similar to the way Amazon pays some self-publishing ebook writers. | |
| Related: Amazon takes on Netflix by offering Prime Video as standalone service | Related: Amazon takes on Netflix by offering Prime Video as standalone service |
| Amazon Video vice-president Jim Freeman said: “There are more options for distribution than ever before and with Amazon Video Direct, for the first time, there’s a self-service option for video providers to get their content into a premium streaming subscription service. We’re excited to make it even easier for content creators to find an audience, and for that audience to find great content.” | Amazon Video vice-president Jim Freeman said: “There are more options for distribution than ever before and with Amazon Video Direct, for the first time, there’s a self-service option for video providers to get their content into a premium streaming subscription service. We’re excited to make it even easier for content creators to find an audience, and for that audience to find great content.” |
| Toy maker Mattel, publishers the Guardian, Condé Nast and Mashable, and online video network Machinima are among the launch partners. | Toy maker Mattel, publishers the Guardian, Condé Nast and Mashable, and online video network Machinima are among the launch partners. |
| The move brings Amazon even more squarely into competition with Google in user-generated video since its $1bn (£690m) acquisition of Twitch, which specialises in the videos of people playing computer games that also form a large segment of the content on YouTube. | The move brings Amazon even more squarely into competition with Google in user-generated video since its $1bn (£690m) acquisition of Twitch, which specialises in the videos of people playing computer games that also form a large segment of the content on YouTube. |
| The two companies are also heading for a showdown in premium video. Amazon has invested heavily in premium content for its Prime video service, in the main competing with Netflix. However, Google last year announced it was launching a paid-for subscription video service without ads, YouTube Red, and earlier this month there were reports it was planning to offer a bundle of channels of online video and live TV channels for $35. | |
| While Netflix is seen as the leader in premium streaming, its video focus means the growing rivalry between Google and Amazon has far wider implications that also cross cloud computing, smartphones and tablets, and retail. | While Netflix is seen as the leader in premium streaming, its video focus means the growing rivalry between Google and Amazon has far wider implications that also cross cloud computing, smartphones and tablets, and retail. |
| However, Amazon’s smaller global distribution currently puts it at a disadvantage to Google and Netflix. Video Direct is currently only available in the US, UK Germany, Austria and Japan. |