In a bid to dangle a little something extra to attract customers and keep the ones it has signed up, Amazon is now offering unlimited photo storage in its cloud for members of its Prime subscription service. That includes any and all digital images, at no extra cost.
Current Amazon Prime members pay either $79 or $99 per year (the company announces a fee change that goes up on a member’s renewal date) to get free two-day shipping on most items as well as access to streaming online video and a Kindle lending library.
The newest storage offering is likely an effort by Amazon to become a one-stop shop of services for customers to take advantage of daily, notes the Seattle Times.
“Our customers have a voracious appetite,” Amazon vice president Greg Greeley said. “People are thinking about Prime for their daily needs.”
The photo service launches today, which Greeley says he expects will bring in new subscribers who want to try that aspect out and then “stay for the shipping.”
There will be no limit on the size of individual photos, and will allow storing pictures in the Raw format used by many photographers. At first only PC users will have the ability to download pictures from Prime Photos in batches, while a Mac version is “coming soon,” according to Amazon.
Videos, however, won’t get unlimited storage. And if you cancel your membership, be prepared to take your pictures elsewhere before a six-month cutoff date, as Amazon will only leave you with 5GB of free storage.
That attachment to a library of your personal photos could keep Prime members who might be itching to wander away from free shipping attached — when faced with the prospect of either moving that library of memories elsewhere or simply re-upping an annual fee, it might simply be easier to stay, or so the thinking at Amazon might be going.
Amazon amps up Prime with unlimited photo storage [Seattle Times]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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