By Ken Finnen
Every time I tell somebody about Amazon Prime they respond “yeah yeah yeah free shipping I get it.” If my family is within earshot they groan and beg the person to walk away while they still can. I originally bought a kindle and joined Prime a few years ago because of the free and discounted books and it was totally worth the $79 a year. . I have 3 kids away at school and my family finds it so (too easy I say) convenient to just order things they find and ship them to their respective schools. I absolutely love the semi-weekly emails stating my order has shipped “Order? What order I didn’t order anything??” They also have same day shipping for free to some places I am hoping my family doesn’t hear about that one.
Prime is not just about free shipping and books anymore, it is so much more. First of all, yes they have amazing shipping options and in certain areas even same day for free. They have Prime Music which has over a million songs and most are available to download, so goodbye Spotify. Prime offers UNLIMITED photo storage and up to 5Gb of video and document storage. This fall Amazon changed the landscape of streaming video by making all of its movies and TV shows downloadable via their Prime Video app. They have created quite a few original TV shows and every year they offer up a slew of Pilots and let members vote on which should go forward. A lot of the actors are unknowns but every once in a while you catch a big name. They also are competing with other streaming services by offering an array of regular broadcast TV shows from the networks. This December they paired up with Showtime and HBO to make some of their more popular shows available for download
I normally read 5-6 books a month without fail, since the change I have forsaken the written word and possibly my marriage because of my obsession. I avoided such shows as Downton Abbey and Entourage for years and always felt a little annoyed at everybody raving about these shows. Two weeks later and a very pissed off family I am now caught up on 13 seasons between the two of them. I watch with an obsession that borders on maniacal, and I will do my best to keep you up on the latest offerings and additions to Prime.
