Amazon is laying the foundation to own content distribution on Android

Amazon just launched the duo of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player on to an unsuspecting world, and it is just the latest volley as they are looking to unify digital content buying under their banner. They now have all the functionality that Apple provides with iTunes and are unlikely to stop here. Lets do a quick rundown:

• Books, newspapers, and magazines through Kindle
• Android Apps through the Amazon App Store
• Videos through video downloads or streaming
• Music purchasing through the MP3 Store
• Music playing and streaming through Cloud Player

Amazon needs to offer better organization and unification between these services, especially on the mobile front. But they have beaten both Google and Apple to the music streaming game and are even rumored to be working on hardware running Android. Personally, I think they could be the first company to offer a real competitor to the iPod Touch rather than entering the smartphone or tablet market. [Amazon] 

Make it a threesome : Amazon enters the online movie & TV show streaming war

Looks like things just got a lot more interesting. With a paid Amazon Prime account ($80 per year) you can now stream "5,000 movies and TV shows" right from Amazon's servers, all while still having that lovely two-day shipping. Netflix and Hulu, your move.

[Amazon]