Amazon launches streaming service to compete with iTunes and Spotify

Amazon's previous streaming service, Prime Music, was launched two years ago but had a relatively small catalogue of around two million songs, compared to the 35-million-plus available on Spotify.

Amazon boast that their new service will have its own "personal assistant", Alexa, who will not only find songs and albums, but can also assist listeners by finding song choices based on their questions. So if, for example, you asked Alexa to "play the latest Two Door Cinema Club" song, the service would (theoretically) find and start playing TDCC's 'Bad Decisions'.

Amazon is hoping that the new streaming site will encourage people to sign up to its Prime membership, which would include Prime TV, movies and e-books, as well as "tens of millions" of songs.

Streaming music has become the new normal in society, as listeners favour using sites like Spotify and iTunes over downloading or purchasing hard copies of albums and singles. But, with so much heavy competition in the market, we wait and see whether Amazon Music Unlimited will be a success or not.