The free video streaming service is available in the United States and counts about 130 movies and 29 TV series
Free, without subscription and supported by advertising: the new video streaming service launched by Amazon is called Freedive and, with these features, it could revolutionize the current market in which pay-only solutions dominate.
The new project of the group of Jeff Bezos has been presented to surprise in the United States and is integrated within the IMDb platform, owned by Amazon and become the popular reference for anyone who wants to know detailed information on actors, directors, movies and TV series. At no cost, but with the “token” of small advertising interruptions, U.S. users will be able to take advantage of a vast catalog of TV series, with titles of the caliber of Fringe, Heroes, The Bachelor and Without a Trace, and Hollywood movies such as Awakenings, Foxcatcher, Memento, Monster, The Illusionist, The Last Samurai, True Romance, Run Lola Run.
How does the new free video streaming service launched by Amazon work
At the moment, to access the service, you don’t need to create an account but you just need a computer, a smartphone, a tablet or an Amazon Fire TV dongle: when one of the chosen titles is present in the catalog, in the IMDb tab you can see the “Watch for Free on IMDb Freedive” button, which will start playback on your PC or TV via the dongle. If while watching you are curious to learn additional information about the film and cast, you can use the X-Ray feature, already available on Amazon Prime Video, the streaming platform for Prime users. The lucky users who will be able to take advantage of the novelty, are those who own their IP in the United States: no information leaks out about a possible extension of Freedive in the rest of the world and, probably, we will have to wait.
The business model proposed by Amazon in the global TV advertising market
The idea of Amazon follows the paradigm of audio streaming, so it’s clear the reference to the free version and supported by advertising of Spotify: the innovative move is to anticipate the competitor, moving before the future arrival of the streaming platform in the house of Apple that, from the considerations of some analysts, could be offered for free to the public.
“We will continue to improve IMDb Freedive based on customer feedback and will soon make it more widely available, including on IMDb’s top mobile apps,” said Col Needham, founder and CEO of IMDb. The high number of monthly users of the IMD portal, coupled with the ambition of giant Amazon, make the new service a product with expanding potential.