Japan: The Next Battleground For Netflix, Inc. And Amazon Prime

Amazon.com and Netflix,Inc. will soon be meeting in the Asian market; although it remains to be observed if either of the services will prove to be successful in the Japanese market.

On Wednesday, Amazon.com announced that it will be launching its Prime Instant Video Services in Japan by next month. Netflix, Inc. had previously announced this news for itself in the beginning of August when it partnered up with wireless provider SoftBank, that their services will be launched in the country on September 2, 2015. The upside for Amazon users in Japan will be that this service will be free for Prime users as they already pay $32 (Yen 3900) per year for the Prime Subscription.

This will be a price advantage for Amazon Prime users. According to reports by CNET, these users will roughly be paying $3 a month for this instant video streaming service whereas Netflix, Inc. subscribers, once it is launched in the country, will have an option to choose from three plans which will be from approximately $6 to $12 per month.

This will be the fourth country that Amazon launches its service in; the others that the company has launched in are the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. According to StreamingMedia.com, the service will be available in certain Televisions, tablets, applications and video gaming consoles. Prime will be offering its services that would include dramas, popular Japanese and U.S shows; since the video streaming firm expanded itself in the United States by providing them with content specifically for the users in the U.S. it has planned to do so for the Japanese market as well.

The president of Amazon Japan Jasper Cheung said in a statement that the streaming media firm is investing considerably all around the world to provide its users with high definition and high quality local and international programming, and expect to do the same for the Japanese market by providing them with premium quality local content. Further he added that the firm knows what the customers want in Japan when it comes to entertainment as they have been offering DVDs and videos to the market for over 15 years and they plan on doing the same with Amazon Prime with no additional cost.

According to a report provided by the Wall Street Journal, Amazon has removed quite a few workers from its Silicon Valley Lab 26 Development Center, in the recent weeks. The report also stated that the firm is stopped working on its large screen tablets as the Fire Smartphone turned out to be a major flop last year despite of the fact that the company did heavy marketing, the phone completely failed to provide the “wow” to its customers as they were already happy with their Iphone and Google Android handsets.

Fake 'Sociopath' Recruitment Posters Pop-up Near Amazon HQ

The New York Time's post has led to bad press for Amazon,com due to which the company is being targeted by fake 'sociopath' recruitment posters.

The recent post by The New York Times, regarding the working environment at Amazon.com, has put the company in limelight for almost a week now. The article claimed the company of having a high pressure workload, tough environment that only welcomed career driven individuals with no personal commitments. Due to this recent negative press, fake Amazon Job Recruitment posters are popping up all around Seattle with the headline “Are you a sociopath? Amazon wants you!”

These posters have appeared near Amazon’s South Lake Union Headquarters on poles and on gym bulletin boards. First the NYT’s article and now these fake recruitment flyers can prove to be very harmful for the online shopping firm, as this will damage the company’s reputation in the eyes of emerging tech talents and engineers who could have otherwise considered joining Amazon. The tagline on the posters reads “Have a conscience? Don’t worry; our work environment will strip it from you in no time! Apply now!” which was followed by a hashtag: #AmazonJobs.

The article, due to which this hype regarding the company’s environment has been created, was published on Sunday after the website had interviewed over 100 ex and current employees at the retail giant. Statements of employees have been given in the article stating that they have seen workers crying in the bathroom and on their desk while at work because the firm has very tough working conditions and not everyone can cope with them. Jeff Bezos in response to NYT’s article sent a memo to his employees saying that the article does not describe the Amazon he knows or the caring employees he works with. Furthermore, he asked his employees to come forward in case they witness any such incidents in the company and email him or the HR department.

After coming across these fake recruitment posters, people started posting sarcastic comments on social media and mostly took it as a joke while others took it as a serious offence. One of Amazon’s tech workers wife posted that her husband is a tech worker at Amazon and he is not a sociopath, he is a good man with a good job. Although, GeekWire spoke with several former employees who confirmed that the article was factually accurate but not entirely true, as it does not paint a fair and complete picture of the company’s environment.

All in all, this has affected the company’s reputation, which will ultimately lead to a high turnover rate. In other to retain its employees, Amazon will have to make an effort to make its benefit policies more attractive for its workers.