Category: Featured News

The online marketplace has released its full on-demand service called Amazon Music Unlimited.

It feels as though rumors about an Amazon streaming music service have been around forever. As of this week, the company launched Amazon Music Unlimited. It is meant to function as a rival to Google Play Music, Apple Music and Spotify. That said, Amazon has worked hard to make its offerings stand out.

There are many ways in which Amazon Music Unlimited is different from other options on the market.

That said, the price of a subscription is likely what makes this streaming music service the most different. In the U.S., it has launched at $79 per year or $7.99 per month for Prime members. This is notably less expensive than the premium Spotify and Apple Music options. Moreover, customers who own an Amazon Echo voice-controlled gadget will be able to subscribe for music at only $3.99 per month.

That said, at the very heart of the service is one that is quite similar to the competition. It has an enormous catalog of songs. It also includes a recommendation engine to help users to discover new music. The service has a contract with the three largest music labels in addition to a solid number of indie labels. It can allow users to create their own playlists though algorithmic playlists are also available.

The Amazon streaming music service is available for Android, iOS, Sonos and desktop users.

Naturally, it is also available through the Amazon set-top boxes as well as its Fire tablets. The company’s new Music apps have been entirely recreated and overhauled. They have new navigation, typography and place a greater focus on album art and imagery.

These applications also offer a number of interesting features. For instance, users can automatically download music the company’s algorithms think they will like. This function occurs in the background so users can benefit from offline listening, too. Lyrics integration has also been included in the mix.

Amazon is focusing the marketing of its new streaming music service on its sleek integration with the Echo devices and with Alexa voice assistant.

The 2016 Digital Payments Study showed a rapidly rising number of consumers using smartphones to pay.

The 2016 Digital Payments Study from Visa revealed insight into European mobile payments trends. It showed that there has been a spike in the number of people using smartphones as wallets. In fact, the number of people using this type of transaction has tripled since 2015.

At the time of the research, 54 percent of consumers were using mobile payments on a regular basis.

The research indicated that European mobile payments were regularly used by over half of consumers. Comparatively, at the same time the year before, only 18 percent of consumers were using mobile wallets to pay for goods and services.

This research involved the participation of over 36,000 online consumers in Europe. They resided in any of 19 different countries in the continent. The study showed a dramatic shift in the use of mobile payments technology over the prior 12 months.

The European mobile payments research also indicated that more people are open to trying the tech.

Last year at the same time, 38 percent of respondents had never used mobile payments and had no intention of ever trying it. This year’s figure has dropped to 12 percent. Clearly, far more people are interested in trying the use of mobile devices to pay for products and services.

There were two countries in which it was most obvious that there was a very large increase in mobile wallet use and interest. These two countries were Turkey and Romania. They have been adopting this technology at a staggering rate.

That said, the United Kingdom stood out as a market where there was a very large percentage of smartphone users who also used mobile payments. In the U.K., 74 percent of device owners had tried mobile wallets. Over half of the people who had tried the tech (59%) had done so to transfer money to friends and family. Slightly fewer (45 percent) had used it for purchasing take-out at restaurants.

A new trend in European mobile payments has also started to develop. Within it, consumers have revealed that they are increasingly comfortable in using their mobile devices to make more expensive purchases.