Amazon Adds Audiobooks and Podcasts To Prime Membership (fortune.com)

If you're one of the 63 million Amazon Prime members out there, you may be happy to hear that Amazon will now grant you unlimited access to podcasts and audiobooks from Audible. Fortune reports: With Tuesday's news, Prime members will now be able to stream a rotating selection of more than 50 audiobooks. Prime members will also have free access to Amazon's newly launched on-demand audio service from Audible Channels, which provides ad-free podcasts and other audio content. Audible released the service in July, and is charging non-Prime members $4.95 each month to access the selection of podcasts. In addition to podcasts, Channels also includes access to audio versions of articles from major publications, comedy shows, short fiction, and more. Fingers crossed they have some engaging technology books in their rotating selection...

Comments

Unlimited Podcasts

[Anonymous Coward]

A major discovery for those unfamiliar with search engines and RSS readers.

Re:Unlimited Podcasts

[tlhIngan]

A major discovery for those unfamiliar with search engines and RSS readers.

Actually, a few of the major podcasters are wanting to charge for podcasts. They actually started to make some noise because the largest podcast management platforms (iTunes) doesn't support paid podcasting. In fact, given the lack of a profit, meant that while the pod cast section works, it's really about all - Apple doesn't put much effort into it nor the podcasts app.

Apparently they made enough noise that Apple was forced to have a meeting with them to discuss improvements.

I suppose the only reason they haven't charged yet is simple - Apple doesn't want to put much money into iTunes development and the management of paid podcasts.

You can bet Amazon is probably going to introduce paid poscasts soon...

Amazon sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all I have to say about that

Re:Amazon sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you. Free two day shipping is fucking awesome. I buy so much shit from Amazon now, sometimes in bulk. Keep herpa-derping the big box stores dweeb.

Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[slacka]

The article says"Prime members will now able to stream a rotating selection of more than 50 audiobooks." and proceeds to self-link to another prime fortune article . That's a blog spam trick and terrible reporting. As a prime member, I want to know what is available and how to stream it?

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[brewthatistrue]

did some quick googling (but haven't really investigated the links in depth yet)

amazon official press release (non-multimedia version): Introducing the Newest Prime Benefit – Audible Channels for Prime

amazon official press release: multimedia version

https://www.amazon.com/audiblechannels

http://www.audible.com/channels/

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The engadget article explained how. Download the Audible app and sign in using your Amazon Prime account. Worked for me on iOS. Few decent books in the current rotation of 50 free ones, but the books are streaming only; to download you need to purchase them.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[Dutch Gun]

I'd imagine we'll see some e-mails or something telling us what we have access to at some point. Or else their marketing people are pretty awful at their jobs.

This is good, because Amazon's streaming video selection for Prime members is somewhat lackluster, and I've been considering dropping it. I've been buying a lot of audiobooks to listen to during my commutes lately, which actually turns it into a somewhat pleasant diversion during the day rather than a daily annoyance. I'll see whether this can convince me that Prime is worthwhile or not.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[ShanghaiBill]

Amazon's streaming video selection for Prime members is somewhat lackluster

It is at least as good as Netflix, and I was paying extra for that. I am happy that I am now getting the same movies/shows from Amazon at no marginal cost.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is at least as good as Netflix

I've heard a lot of people say this, but my own experience is that it is complete shit. Netflix isn't as good as it used to be, but at least it isn't as bad as amazon video.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[PingSpike]

I don't have prime, but it seems like they hide what is actually available to anyone that isn't signed up. Which leads me to reading between the lines that they're embarrassed by what they have available. And I gather many of the shows they do have are listed, but its only the first season and then you have to buy the episodes after that. I have no interest in that type of product myself, and think the first season free thing is a sneaky bait and switch tactic.

Netflix has its own irritations, like hiding expiring titles from the viewer until its ripped out from under them.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the time it took you to click the spam-link and write up your bitch-about-it (tm) post, you could have just logged on to your Amazon prime account and found out. And before you can send a reply about how you don't have a prime account: Spoiler alert: you have to download to the audible app to find out the selection.

Your welcome.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[tentenone]

It's not so much first season free and pay for the rest, it's more like a time delay. Kind of the opposite of what Hulu was, where you'd get the most recent episodes for free but needed Hulu plus to get older episodes, or standard cable movie pay-per-view before the movie moved to HBO/Showtime/Whatever. Their 3rd party content selection isn't the best, but it's pretty good, but their original content (Alpha House, Man in the High Castle, Hand of God, Beta, Mad Dogs (yes, it's a remake of a British series, but it's still original content)) is really good (not sure about the children's shows however).

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to install the audible app and sign in with your prime account to see which audiobooks are available. The pickings are slim.

Re:Why no link to the catalog? How to access this?

[mfinn999]

I know others have posted about how for find it, but this blog spam type reporting is way too common on sites that should not be doing it. A typical article will describe some new feature or service, with no link to that feature or service, just links to other articles describing it. I know how to use google, but so does the author. If you are writing an article on the internet describing something else on the internet, give us the damn link in the article!

What's it all about Alfie.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no life I work all the time and then fall asleep in front of a computer when I get home.
I absolutely live off of Amazon, although I refuse to be a member of anything and even though they keep on popping up messages every time I purchase something about "becoming a member for free delivery if I pay blah blah blah one-off fee.

These audiobooks, are cloud-based you download a program from Amazon, for a Microsoft Windows operating system, and click this program and it plays the sound from this cloud-based server?

I was expecting them to be DVDs, so I purchased a load of autobiographies and I got the bright idea to purchase some for my end of life patients. Mostly elderly women from the "old London neighbourhoods" their favourite storyteller as such was "Michael Caine" so I purchased all these entertainers autobiographies in Michael Caine's age group and slightly older as in Roger Moore, and so on.

I have some HP workstations UNIX systems, I have a pro server Linux, and a Oracle Solaris operating system, and a Samsung Windows pay system which is not allowed downloads. Damn Amazon, audio doesn't mean audio CDs it means audio Amazon cloud-based blah blah.

Books are no good for people who are feeling unwell they cannot concentrate on processing the book, but they can get fully involved and laugh when listening to sound. And thus my bright idea was destroyed by Amazon.

(Pigsy)

not interested

[rossdee]

I am not into audiobooks, and having to be onlinr to stream stuff sucks
  of coutse Prime is worth it for the free 2 day shipping

Re:not interested

[piojo]

I wish you (and Amazon) would stop calling it free. It's not free, it's flat-rate. That rate is $99/year, equal to the price of quite a few orders of 2-day shipping.

Re:not interested

[chispito]

Very few people who are not a small business get Prime for the shipping. Prime Instant Video is a much bigger deal, as it's like a mini (in both terms of content and price) version of Netflix. The free shipping, originally the whole point, is more of a perk now.

Re:not interested

[SScorpio]

Speak for yourself. Everyone I know that has prime only uses the free two shipping. No one is using prime video or music.

Re:not interested

[Obfuscant]

equal to the price of quite a few orders of 2-day shipping.

Except it isn't really two day shipping. It's "by 8PM the second day". Since nobody delivers anywhere close to that late, it's really "third day AM" delivery.

And Amazon covers themselves by claiming that delivery of a package via USPS occurs when the package gets to the USPS office and not when it is actually delivered...

I've had "2 day shipping" take five days to get here. But "free" is the important part.

Re:not interested

[piojo]

It also tends to be useless (not offered) for half of the items I'm interested in, but the "free" claim is the real manipulative crap. (IIRC they list the price in the same sentence--free for $99--probably at the behest of their lawyers.)

Audible rocks

[HBI]

I love these audiobooks. I have some eclectic tastes - mostly secondary works on antiquity and medieval times, with an occasional divergence into the Napoleonic Era. Luckily, the books I like are long and if well written, engaging. I can rip them to my iPod and listen on my iphone or computer, and I take advantage of all these modes. The selection is not incredible in my particular area of interest, but I have a backlog of things to listen to.

Protip: copy to computer, convert to mp3, chop into 10 minute segments with sequential numbers and you can easily transit between listening methodologies without worrying about being online. The file number is a useful way to sync between streaming and listening to files. This and a pair of Bose noise cancelling phones make plane rides very pleasant.

Re:Audible rocks

[caseih]

It's not that easy to convert Audible books to mp3. It can be done, of course, but it's not automatic or easy. Most methods involve exploiting the analog hole in real time (as long as the audio book is). Mind you if you run the process at night that's not so bad.

Personally I don't find any utility in making a bunch of small mp3 files. Any player worth it's salt will bookmark your position and let you do variable speed playback.

And one of the benefits of leaving the audio book in Audible is syncing to the Kindle. Fabulous feature

My tip to audible is to convert your account from $15 a month for one credit to a maintenance mode where you pay just a few dollars a year to keep your account active. This is good if you find yourself accumulating credits that you don't want to lose but haven't used yet. Also, many audio books are quite cheap if you buy the kindle version. Often the kindle version plus the audible version can be purchased for much less than the $15 they would charge you for a credit.

Finally, there's an Android app for downloading LibreVox audiobooks that's kind of handy, though the latest version really screwed up the interface and made it hard to browse what's available.

Re:Audible rocks

[HBI]

Who needs an analog hole?

There are a lot of devices that do not like 24 hour long mp3 files.

Re: Audible rocks

[jabuzz]

I suggest you read the manpage for ffmpeg then. It can remove the drm from your audible files provided you have your key, which is easy enough to determine and spit out a bog standard aac audio file.

Re: Audible rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

More hand-wavy nonsense. If it's so easy, prove it with three examples of your own. No? Thought so.

Re:Audible rocks

[CCarrot]

Protip: copy to computer, convert to mp3, chop into 10 minute segments with sequential numbers and you can easily transit between listening methodologies without worrying about being online.

...or you can simply buy/rent audiobooks from Dounpour and skip the hassle. Pro-protip: using Downpour instead of Audible-based stores also financially supports a DRM-free business model.

FWIW, I don't buy virtual media from anywhere that encumbers it with DRM. I'll tolerate it in streaming services like Netflix, but if I'm purchasing an ebook or music, I expect to be able to do what I want with it, same as if I purchased the plastic or dead-tree version. The first vendor that offers equivalent freedom for movies and TV shows at a reasonable cost will get my business (and my entertainment costs will go up sharply, I expect, but such is life). For now I'll stick with the hassles of Netflix for video, and just listen to/read my books offline.

Re:Audible rocks

[caseih]

Ahh if only it were that easy. Like most of these utilities, they are fraught with difficulty and most often just don't work. I tried this program (under Windows 10, the only windows I have readily available right now) but it wouldn't work with any of my aax files (audible manager did open and play them.). I hit the Umwandeln button and it just said immediately, Umwaldlung beendet. Conversion finished.

Re: Audible rocks

[caseih]

Now that is excellent news.

Re:Audible rocks

[HBI]

It works on Win7 as is, but you can also issue a command line sequence to make it happen. The breakage is in the GUI.

Re:Audible rocks

[HBI]

So I went to test your site, sure I wasn't going to find the books I wanted, and I found exactly what I was looking for.

Damn. Now I regret my Audible subscription.

Re:Audible rocks

[CCarrot]

So I went to test your site, sure I wasn't going to find the books I wanted, and I found exactly what I was looking for.

Damn. Now I regret my Audible subscription.

Haha, yeah, I know. I am continually impressed with their selection myself, but I was lucky enough not to have fallen into the Audible honeypot before I found them...although I'll admit I was teetering on the edge. I was getting quite sick of buying physical media for my audiobooks! Now if Downpour doesn't have it, I simply go back to the disc hunt online.

Cruel Tease

[skywire]

unlimited access to podcasts and audiobooks from Audible

Did you flunk Reading Comprehension 101, or do you just take delight in abusing fellow human beings?

Re:Cruel Tease

[SeaFox]

unlimited access to podcasts and audiobooks from Audible

Did you flunk Reading Comprehension 101...

Possibly why they are so hyped on audiobooks.

Rotating unlimited?

[mbeckman]

In what way is a "rotating selection of 50 audiobooks" unlimited? Not only are Prime members limited to the 50 titles Amazon puts in rotation, they're limited in how much time they have to read the books! Limits, limits, everywhere! As with their "free" Prime movies, Amazon manages to make another utterly useless "free" offering -- that costs $99/year.

Re:Rotating unlimited?

[cdrudge]

They're using the same definition of limit as what cell phone companies use. Like how your unlimited data plan has a 128kbps limit when you reach some total data limit threshold.

Re:Rotating unlimited?

[the_saint1138]

Yeah, I was pretty skeptical when I saw "unlimited".

Sure enough, just Slashdot editors goofing up summaries again. Seriously BeauHD, unlimited does not mean the same thing as "rotating selection of 50".

Re:Rotating unlimited?

[sh00z]

Unlimited, as in you can listen to it 24/7. Just because you'll run out of new content before the selection changes doesn't mean you can't re-play from the selection of 50.

Re:Rotating unlimited?

[squiggleslash]

You have unlimited access to those 50 titles? ;-)

Canada left out in the cold once again

[phoenix_rizzen]

Prime is available up here, but no video streaming, and now no audio streaming. :(

Re:Canada left out in the cold once again

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry about it. The selection in both cases is pure crap. It's like the free books they put on amazon for prime members. It's all garbage.

Amazon Raises Middle Finger to Rest of World Again

[HannethCom]

Title should read, "Amazon Adds Audiobooks and Podcasts To US Prime Membership".

I have Amazon.ca Prime and do not get free Audobooks, Podcasts, Video Streaming, Audio Streaming, or Ebook Rentals.
Heck, because I have an account on Amazon.com, I had to contact support to get my Unlimited Prime Photo Storage, which they just announced came to Canada.

50 audiobooks?

[rsborg]

That's a pretty limited subset of the thousands of books at Audible.

So it's more of a teaser (that happens to rotate every month). Just like Prime Video - where they make it difficult for you to search for free video, and try to sell you to buy the non-free Amazon video.

Cross-promotion within the company's product suites? Wake me up when they get serious.

Re:50 audiobooks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are. Audible prices are a massive rip-off. The high prices ensure most people do not use it, but there are enough that do that make it very profitable. but when you have them sponsoring well know tech people, effectively spamming many pod/tv-casters, who never shut the fuck up about the service, you have to wonder how much more successful they'd be coming down a book prices and saving the spam-verts. It would also be nice if they increased the quality. There's no excuse for the massively over-compressed low bandwidth shite they peddle these days. We're not dealing with dial-up downloads.

Re:50 audiobooks?

[rsborg]

Of course they are. Audible prices are a massive rip-off. The high prices ensure most people do not use it, but there are enough that do that make it very profitable. but when you have them sponsoring well know tech people, effectively spamming many pod/tv-casters, who never shut the fuck up about the service, you have to wonder how much more successful they'd be coming down a book prices and saving the spam-verts. It would also be nice if they increased the quality. There's no excuse for the massively over-compressed low bandwidth shite they peddle these days. We're not dealing with dial-up downloads.

I honestly use and love Audible as I commute often and I share Prime with my family who also read the audiobooks. I do agree they're ripe for disruption, but book publishers have been successful in pushing against disruption of the existing licensing/pricing model, and Audible is (so far) the best experience.

I'm fine paying $15 (or less) for a good read (getting 47h of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon for 1 credit feels like theft). Not sure what you're talking about w/r/t quality - it's decent.

Re:50 audiobooks?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, amazon gives free additional content to prime members without raising the price, and all you can do is complain about it. Do you also bitch if your ice cream is too cold?

I LOVE AMAZON

[Anonymous Coward]

I fucking love amazon. The store is the shit. I love amazon.
I don't love the ceo. Some say I should boycott on this alone. They have a compelling case, I hate to say, I forgot what that case was? CIA Waterboard false Flag? Racist Greater Israel? Fuck.. SO far cognitive Dissonance or whatever the fuck I haven't nuked my amazon account even though he's a geo-political psycho piece of shit who I would prefer wasn't the CEO. Don't feel bad because paypalsux and I still have that too.
I not so sure about prime. It mostly feels like some shit I might accidentally click on and then be forced to sign up, it actually scares me.
I LOVE AMAZON with the caveat of the ceo. Just sent the CEO to the jail and then give amazon to the people that work there and it would be GREAT, a 10 of 10!

Same problem as the "lending library"

[Geeky]

This sounds like it'll be the same as the Kindle lending library for Amazon Prime members (you can get a book for a month, one per month, one at a time). The problem is the selection. It's no good if you want to read something specific.

Same with the video for that matter. OK, you might, if you're lucky, find a film showing for free on Prime that you want to watch but most stuff still costs on top of the Prime membership and it isn't even any cheaper than getting it elsewhere.

Re:Same problem as the "lending library"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're an avid reader, use kindle unlimited. You may not have access to everything, but having a selection of millions of titles isn't a bad start. If Prime is of no value, stop paying for it. Prime only encourages you to buy shit you probably never really wanted, let alone need, but you subconsciously buy it anyway to get value from your Prime subscription and thinking your're getting a good deal.

You also have to remember the likes of Amazon and Netflix are beholden to the publishers. If a show/film gets a lot of streaming, the publishers up the price.

Re:Same problem as the "lending library"

[Geeky]

Kindle unlimited would only work for me if the right books were on it, and I'm on the border when it comes to value. I might only read one book a month, sometimes two if I get more free time. I really ought to stop paying for Prime - it's the next day delivery that really encourages me to buy the shit I don't need, and before I had Prime I was perfectly happy to wait a few days for free delivery on the things I did actually want.

Re: Same problem as the "lending library"

[skywire]

I'm sure it's great if you read the kind of books they include in it.

Free shipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not see much incentive here for reasons many have pointed out. Prime though is still nice if you shop on amazon though you would have to do the the math if your shopping frequency and shipping makes it worth it. Was never impressed with the prime movie/tv free with prime selection and it seems this is the same.

Desperate

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to deliver on their promise of 2-day shipping. Items fulfilled by AMZN often arrive a day late, and often the original arrival was Friday, so for me they effectively arrive 7 days late because I can't use them until next weekend. Also they still have "marketplace" merchants lying about having things in stock. I found about a third to a fifth of what I ordered generated a customer service email.

I got probably three free months of Prime by complaining about arrival dates, but eventually I got sick of tracking their performance and filing the emails and solved the problem in two steps: (1) cancel prime, (2) buy less stuff generally, and a larger fraction of it from eBay.

Apparently the crack team of MBAs at AMZN don't think this is a serious problem for them. The opportunity to "grow into other markets" or "diversify the value proposition of Prime" is the serious thing on the agenda, while customers firing them for insulting non-performance or defecting to other merchants because of problems that could be fixed with marketplace rule tweaks and database queries is just natural churn. I'm disappointed but not surprised. I suppose things were worse under the Communists, but things aren't that well run under the Capitalists, either.

And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. Still not worth being a Prime member.

Free, alternative options

[ubrgeek]

A lot of public libraries offer free audio-book programs (TBH, haven't used them. I can't concentrate on things long enough to get anything from an audio book). For example, the Los Angeles public library has deals with OverDrive, OneClickDigital, and Hoola.

Again, I can't vouch for whether their new releases or even good books, but the programs are there.

Audiable is all drm content

[bobjr94]

The problem with using audiable is all their content is a proprietary file format that requires their own player. You can't download an audio book, put it on a usb drive and play it in on most a car radio made in the past 6+ years. I was hoping after amazon bought them they would switch to mp3, like all of amazon's music store.

As an audio book narrator...

[Jawnn]

...I have to ask, how will this impact my royalty share compensation through ACX? I'll wager that I know the answer and this is just another way that Amazon is taking advantage of my work without compensating me for it.

Re:As an audio book narrator...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you explain why audio books are so slow? Is that so you guys can more clearly speak each word? Is it some common reading speed understood by most of the population? Something else?