Amazon has launched Amazon Amp, an app for live broadcasting & listening to music. Here's what's coming.
Amazon has launched Amazon Amp as a sort of live broadcast for Creators. It’s meant to be a Clubhouse competitor, but rather than focusing on discussions or presentations, Amazon Amp is really meant for listening to music.
It’s almost like a live podcast, running as a live stream. This is an interesting idea, since Amazon Amp can keep people tuning to a live stream to see what’s going to happen next. It’s FOMO on steroids, and makes a nice compliment to Twitch.
“Amp is where people come together to create live, shared radio shows with the music they love. Create a show, call in, or bop along to some tunes – together. You run the airwaves,” reads their announcement.
Who woulda guessed that the FM radio or College Radio formats would resurface in 2022 as an Amazon app? Lol … retro radio, in a shiny new digital format. Right now, AMP is in beta mode, so it’s in public testing for iOS. They’ve said that an Android app is in the works.
Ashley Carman at The Verge made a good comparison by saying “The app is launching late in the social audio game. Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms and Spotify’s Greenroom already cater to users, though none make music the main focus.”
Amazon Amp is similar enough to Clubhouse to be a beginning comparison, but the way it plays out is a lot different than Clubhouse.
AMAZON AMP
Amazon Amp has licensed tens of millions of songs for you to broadcast, with the promise of adding more. They’re saying it’s as easy as creating a show title, creating a playlist and starting your show. You can even take live callers.
This is going to intersect with podcasters, and since Spotify podcasts and YouTube podcasts have been upping their game lately, it’s easy to see why Amazon is offering Amp at this time.
AMAZON AMP RADIO
Tens of millions of songs
Live stream format
Take live calls from your audience
It’s easy to see at this point that people are gonna get creative with the format and start their self-styled shows about sports, politics, gaming or any micro-genre people want.
The addition of licensed music just means that you can use background tracks as intros and outros to different segments. B-EATS by Samuel Akainyahy is an example of this, he’s already combing music with food. Check some of the initial Amazon Amp shows.
AMAZON AMP ADS
Amazon Amp isn’t launching with any money-making features like ads etc., but it’s easy to see that getting folded in in the future. Since Twitch recently launch an Ads Incentive Program for Creators, it’s easy to see that Amazon Amp might offer that as well.
AMAZON AMP APP
The Amazon Amp app is a free download for iOS (Android is coming soon they promise). It’s also entirely possible that since this an Amazon thing, they could possibly integrate Twitch in some way.
If you sign up for the Amazon Amp newsletter, you can get info about updates to the app, new feature announcements, creator opportunities, and creators that already using the platform.
Jacob Kastrenakes at The Verge said “Amp looks a whole lot like Clubhouse at the end of the day. But the addition of free music could be a compelling draw — and it’s something expensive and tricky enough to negotiate that competitors likely won’t be able to recreate it overnight.”
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