What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Amazon, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor

Amazon

Amazon91 posts

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. The company sells books, hardware, groceries, apparel, and millions of other products, as well as online services such as instant video, streaming music, and its own branded entertainment on its retail websites. Amazon has both a United States and international arm, and is known for the Kindle e-reader and the Fire smartphone.

Biography view > Click for Latest News view
22 Nov, 2013

Betas

0 Comments

Amazon Studios releases Betas, its second original comedy series. The show, along with Alpha House, won out among six other competing comedy pilots vetted by Amazon customers. Betas is about a group of awkward techies who want to create a dating app so they form a start-up in San Francisco. The show stars Ed Begley Jr., Joe Dinicol, Jon Daly, Maya Erskine, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni, and was created by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard. Slated to include eleven episodes in its first season, the first three episodes are available for free on Amazon Instant Video, but subsequent episodes will be released every week exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers.

1 Dec, 2013

Prime Air

0 Comments

In an interview with 60 minutes host Charlie Rose Bezos reveals that the company has begun development on a drone delivery service to be called Amazon Prime Air:

It won’t work for everything. We’re not going to deliver kayaks or table saws this way.

When launched, customers will be able to order selected products and have them delivered to their doorsteps by a flying autonomous drone charted by exact GPS coordinates. According to Bezos, the drones will have been programmed with redundancies and reliability checks to prevent them from accidentally landing on someone’s head. Amazon says it will take the company “some number of years” to get the technology off the ground and gain FAA approval.

8 Jan, 2014

Licensing deal

0 Comments

CBS and Amazon announce an exclusive licensing deal for the upcoming science fiction series. Amazon will be given exclusive rights to air the episodes online via their Prime service. Episodes will be available for streaming on the service four days after they premiere on Television. CBS:

Our partnership with Amazon for ‘Under the Dome’ helped build a creative, financial and marketing model for event television in the summer. We look forward to using the same model for Extant, a series whose creative auspices, on-screen talent and intriguing concept is already generating great excitement.

6 Feb, 2014

Second Pilot Season

0 Comments

Amazon debuts its second wave of pilot episodes available for streaming on Amazon Instant Video. The lineup includes a mix of comedy and drama pilots: Bosch, The After, Mozart in the Jungle, The Rebels, and Transparent. Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios:

With our previous set of pilots, customers submitted thousands of reviews within the first few days and more than 80 percent of those reviews were 4 and 5 stars. We collaborated with some of the very best creators in Hollywood — and even some new comers that submitted their show through our open door process — to bring customers a wide array of top-quality shows. This season we have something for everyone with a mix of comedy, drama and kids programming — we can’t wait to hear what customers think.

Viewers will rate their favorite pilots, and selected shows will be greenlit for a full-season distributed by Amazon Studios.

23 May, 2014

Tumble Leaf

0 Comments

Amazon releases Tumble Leaf, its first original programming geared for kids. The first episode is free on Amazon Instant Video and the rest of the series are available exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers. Targeted to preschoolers and their parents, the stop-motion animated show features a blue Fox named Fig, his sidekick Stick, and cohort Maple. They live on a ship dry docked adjacent to a beach and a green forest. Created by Drew Hodges and produced by Bix Pix Entertainment, the show is designed to promote “creative thinking and education through a world of adventure and play.”

Tumble Leaf - Official Teaser | Prime Video Kids

10 Jun, 2014

Halts pre-orders

0 Comments

In tandem with its dispute with publishing companies, Amazon stops taking advance orders on select Warner Bros. videos, including Lego: The Movie, 300: Rise Of An Empire, Winter’s Tale, and Transcendence. Amazon has not commented on the dispute, but a spokesperson from Time Warner states:

It is general policy not to comment on contract terms or any other proprietary information having to do with our partners.

Amazon customers complain verbally on the site, that Lego: The Movie and other popular titles are not listed on Amazon’s “forthcoming list” and “Kids & Family” page. The dispute between Amazon and Time Warner will not be resolved until a new contract is agreed upon by both parties.

27 Jun, 2014

Creative Galaxy

0 Comments

Amazon adds another series to its original children’s programming produced by Amazon Studios. Creative Galaxy, from Angela Santomero and Out of the Blue, relies on the premise that art is part of our everyday lives. Available to stream on Amazon Instant Video, the first six episodes are free for Amazon Prime subscribers. The show tells the story of space travellers Art and Epiphany who journey the galaxy making art to fix the problems they face. At the end of each show, a live-action featurette allows parents and children to learn how to make the crafts featured in each episode.

Creative Galaxy - Series Preview | Prime Video Kids

Jul 2014

Denies FTC request

Announcement0 Comments

Amazon resists a request by the Federal Trade Commission to require a password for in-app purchases using their application store. They say they are willing to go to court over this issue. A FTC spokesperson says:

The commission is focused on ensuring that companies comply with the fundamental principle that consumers should not be made to pay for something they did not authorize.

However, Amazon claims in a letter to the FTC that they refund applications purchased accidentally:

When customers told us their kids had made purchases they didn’t want, we refunded those purchases.

9 Jul, 2014

Requests drone test permission

0 Comments

Amazon sends a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration asking if they can have special permission to test their delivery drones outside of the six sites approved for drone testing in the country. They say they will be able to improve the technology more quickly if they can test them close to their headquarters in Seattle:

Current FAA rules allow hobbyists and manufacturers of model aircraft wide latitude in flying their sUAS [Small Unmanned Aerial Systems] outdoors. Because Amazon is a commercial enterprise we have been limited to conducting R&D flights indoors or in other countries. Of course, Amazon would prefer to keep the focus, jobs, and investment of this important research and development initiative in the United States by conducting private research and development operations outdoors near Seattle.

Requests FAA drone permission

Announcement0 Comments

Amazon is asking the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to use Amazon Prime Air drones to deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. The aircraft can travel over 50 miles per hour and carry loads of up to 5 pounds. The Company says, about 86 percent of Amazon’s deliveries are 5 pounds or less. The FAA allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned. Amazon is asking for an exemption so it can test its drones only over Amazon’s private property, away from airports or areas with aviation activity —and not in densely populated areas or near military bases.

We believe customers will love it, and we are committed to making Prime Air available to customers worldwide as soon as we are permitted to do so.

10 Jul, 2014

Sued over in-app purchases

0 Comments

The FTC sues Amazon after the company disregards warnings that they need to require a password for in-app purchases so they cannot accidentally be bought by kids or users who are not aware they cost real money:

Amazon has received thousands of complaints related to unauthorized in-app charges by children in these and other games, amounting to millions of dollars of charges. In many instances, parents have complained that their children could not or did not understand that their activities while playing the app could result in charges that cost real money. Amazon has received thousands of complaints related to unauthorized in-app charges by children in these and other games, amounting to millions of dollars of charges.

Amazon does not comment on the lawsuit.

Amazon Zocalo

0 Comments

Amazon announces Zocalo, a business-oriented document sharing and storage service. Users can upload files and choose who has access to them within an organization. They can also set a deadline for when the user(s) they send it to should provide feedback on the document. The service costs $5 per month per user and offers each person 200 GB of storage.

11 Jul, 2014

Raises shipping price to $0.01

Announcement0 Comments

After France bans free shipping of books, Amazon raises it shipping price from free to $0.01 Euros, which is one penny. In an FAQ for their shoppers, Amazon explains:

We are unfortunately no longer allowed to offer free deliveries for book orders. We have therefore fixed delivery costs at one centime per order containing books and dispatched by Amazon to systematically guarantee the lowest price for your book orders.

16 Jul, 2014

Kindle Unlimited

0 Comments

A user on the message board Kboards finds a page on Amazon’s website about a program called Kindle Unlimited, which offers unlimited ebooks from participating publishers for $9.99 per month. Amazon removes the page from its website, but a cache is saved on Google, which says:

Enjoy unlimited access to over 600,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks on any device for just $9.99 a month.

25 Jul, 2014

Annedroids

0 Comments

Amazon launches  Annedroids — its third original programming for kids series. The show revolves around a kid scientist Anne and her human and non-human friends, including a genderless robot negotiating “boy” and “girl” roles. Created by J.J. Johnson and Sinking Ship Entertainment, the series is produced by Amazon Studios, the company’s in-house production company:

[the show] organically showcases the STEAM (Science & Technology interpreted through Engineering & the Arts) curriculum by way of a ‘secret garden’ of science, a junkyard environment where it’s not unusual to see a 16-foot claw-like android helping an 11-year-old kid scientist harness lightning to power up her latest invention – and that’s just episode 1!

28 Jul, 2014

Fire Phone #1 on Amazon

0 Comments

The Amazon Fire Phone becomes the top selling smartphone on Amazon’s website. Amazon declines to provide exact sales statistics to the news site Quartz.

30 Jul, 2014

Invests $2billion in India

0 Comments

Amazon will invest an additional $2 billion in India to support its growth in the country.  Amazon has scaled up rapidly in the country since its launch in June last year. The company has heavily invested in logistics and marketing and has created a network of warehouses across the country. It now sells over 17 million products across 28 categories and hosts about 8,500 merchants on its marketplace.

13 Aug, 2014

Amazon Local Register

0 Comments

Amazon unveils a new card payment service for businesses to transact purchases. Registration for Amazon Local Register is available through its mobile app. The iOS and Android versions of the app are free for download. Rivaling Square, which delivers a similar service, businesses can accept credit or debit card transactions with the use of a card reader ($10) available on Amazon’s website. Using the same technology that powers purchases on Amazon.com, the online retailer receives 2.5% of each payment. Amazon says merchants will be credited $10 to offset the cost of the reader. Money is collected through the service is available on the next business day.

New card reader

0 Comments

Amazon introduces new Card Reader through a company based out of Seattle.  There are options to bundle the software with the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s Fire Smartphone as well as other options such as receipt printers and cash drawers available for purchase. Merchants app is available both for iPhone and iPad as well as some Android devices and can be found in the app store. The physical card reading device is available for purchase from Amazon for $10.

We want to make accepting payments so easy and inexpensive that it no longer gets in the way of a business owner doing what they love — serving their customers and growing their business.