"We have a video advertising business that currently offers programs like First Episodes free and ads associated with movie and game trailers," said Sally Fouts, Amazon's public relations manager. An Amazon spokeswoman said, "We're often experimenting with new things, but we have no plans to offer a free streaming media service." The series is available exclusively on Prime Instant Video. The company just sent out invites to a media event in New York next Wednesday that promises “an update on our video business.” 
 
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 The invitation doesn’t mention any hardware announcement, but at this point, it’s pretty clear that Amazon will announce the device next week. The device will feature Amazon’s Prime Instant video service front and center, but also offer third-party apps, including Netfix and Hulu Plus. The proposed ad-supported service and Amazon's streaming device may be an effort to entice customers to upgrade to Prime, which offers unlimited streaming video and two-day package delivery service, the people close to the company said. Amazon hopes the ad-supported music and video services prompts users to buy more merchandise from Amazon.com, those people said.
– YouTube and Netflix, watch your back: Amazon plans to stream video content for free and rise among the ranks of multimedia power players, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. If it happens, the project will include original series like Betas as well as licensed programming that Amazon could tie to its retail website (shoppers looking for Bruce Springsteen CDs might watch the video for "Born in the USA," say). The service would run on ad dollars and try to entice people into paying $99 annually for Prime, which currently offers unlimited video streaming. Other evidence something's up: Amazon paid about $1 billion last year for content and original programming, and plans to launch something new next week—likely the Roku-like box it's been building since 2012, GigaOm reports. The device will offer Prime video along with apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus, and possibly games (Amazon has been designing a wireless game controller, after all). The box may even include free streaming, but if that reduces the value of Prime, Amazon "would risk losing Prime customers," a TV analyst tells USA Today. "After all, it just raised the price."