Jeff Bezos is planning to use short-form content for Amazon Prime users to take on biggies like YouTube and Facebook.
Two persons with knowledge of the development told ET that Amazon is planning to put up under-15-minute videos like music videos, trailers, comedy and how-to videos on its platform.
“The success of YouTube lies in short-form, snackable content. Facebook is also increasing such content on its platform under Facebook Watch,” said one of the persons mentioned above. “The massive surge in watch time on YouTube and the number of daily and monthly users since launch of Reliance Jio are unbelievable and it was just a matter of time for Amazon to focus on this.”
A n emailed query to Amazon Prime Video did not elicit any response till press time on Thursday. The second person quoted above said that the move aims to get more creators on the Prime Video platform and eventually get consumers to spend more time. “Unlike YouTube and Facebook, which have ad-revenue-sharing arrangement with the content creators, Amazon will pay the creators on the basis of views of the content,” he said.
” Short-form content sounds like a good idea for Amazon,” said Ashish Bhasin, chairman and CEO – South Asia at Dentsu Aegis Network. “There are times when a consumer doesn’t have 40 minutes to watch a full episode or an hour and half to watch a movie, but she may not be averse to watch a 10-15-minute short video if it is of interest to her. Critical here is to form a habit, which will only be when the content is consistently of good quality and of interest.”
Amazon has a Prime Video Direct (PVD) platform, where it allows select content creators to directly upload videos, without the company actually commissioning them. PVD allows video creators of all types, including those who specialise in short form, to upload videos and get paid based on the views.
The same platform might be used for the short content, one of the sources said.
This is not the first time Amazon is dabbling with short-form content. In the US, it had launched Video Shorts, a service under Instant Videos (now Prime Video), where many pieces of two to 15 minutes of content are still available under categories like music videos, movie trailers, food & drink, how-to, beauty how-to, technology, literature & books, cooking and more.
YouTube in India has seen over 100% growth year-on-year in terms of daily active users. From only 16 Indian content creators with more than a million subscribers in 2014, the number grew to 145 in 2017 and crossed 300 in 2018.
The growth in numbers also forced Facebook to open up advertising for Indian creators in December and it started allowing insertion of ad breaks in videos and is offering 55% of revenue to the creators.
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