MoneyWatch Tech

Amazon Readies an Embeddable iTunes

By Erik Sherman

Updated on: December 16, 2009 / 7:20 AM EST / MoneyWatch

There were two interesting announcements coming out of Amazon (AMZN) that indicate how the company may be positioning itself to become the online partner of more media companies: media streaming cloud services that, of course, could tie in to the company's expertise in processing orders and collecting money.

The first announcement is that media management software company Double Twist is working with Amazon to create an iTunes facility for the large parts of the world that don't use Apple (AAPL) products. The idea is to provide as close to an uncomplicated and integrated purchasing process by essentially bringing Amazon's music store into the software, so any device that could run Double Twist could become a storefront.

The second bit of news is that Amazon has introduced media streaming to the AWS content delivery service.

This new feature enables streaming delivery of audio and video content, providing an alternative to progressive download where end users download a full media file. Amazon CloudFront streams content from a worldwide network of 14 edge locations, ensuring low latencies and providing cost-effective delivery.

Double Twist now becomes just one example of taking streaming, and potential paid access to media properties, and embedding the capabilities into any type of application, including the following:

third-party training videos made available on a company's intranet
licensed media streaming included in a consumer electronics device
movie studios and record labels offering streamed or downloadable content directly to consumers
content creators offering access to special material not available through normal channels as a customer loyalty or frequency reward

I'm not suggesting that Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble (BKS), or any other particular venue goes away. People go to a retailer for choice beyond the offerings of any one content creator. However, this will give content companies a way to walk around distributors and directly deal with users. And even though it seems that Amazon would be enabling a loss of its own revenue, instead it knows that someone would end up doing this, and might as well have a slice of something rather than all of nothing.

Image via stock.xchng user hrotgers , site standard license.