Amazon Prime Video could be getting into the live news business, if only for one night.
Variety reports that the company is in talks with longtime NBC and MSNBC news anchor Brian Williams to host a live Election Night special, competing with more traditional TV news broadcasts to offer non-partisan coverage of the U.S. presidential election as results come in.
While Amazon, like other services, built its streaming business around on-demand shows and movies, it has been moving into live programming, most notably with its Thursday night NFL broadcasts. (Even Netflix, whose executives had consistently said they interested in bidding for live sports rights, announced a deal with the WWE in January.)
Amazon did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Variety says the company is not planning to create regular news programming and is instead treating this as a one-off.
Threads, the Twitter-like app from Instagram, is adding live scores for sports games. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday that Threads has started testing live scores for NBA games, and that the platform plans to add support for additional leagues in the future.
The launch of the feature comes as Threads continues to take on X, which has had live scores for sports games for around a decade now. With this new feature, Threads is seeking to attract users who would normally go on X to discuss live games and stay up-to-date on the latest developments. Threads isn’t just adding live scores — users will also be able to tap a team’s logo to be redirected to the conversation about that team, and connect with other users who follow them.
Image Credits: Threads
Threads told TechCrunch that the new feature will make it easier for users to join in on conversations about their favorite teams. The company says basketball has become one of the most popular topics on the social network and that NBA Threads has become one of the app’s most active sports communities. The idea behind the new feature is to make Threads the place for sports discourse, the company notes.
Within one day of a game, you can search for it on Threads to see the game’s start time. During the game, you can search for it while it’s happening to see the current score. After a game has ended, you can search for it to see the final score.
The addition of live scores marks Threads’ latest effort in building out a platform to rival X. Earlier this week, Threads officially rolled out its “trending now” feature to all users in the U.S. The launch of trending topics brings Threads more in line with X, as it allows users to find timely conversations that are taking place on the social network.
Threads is rolling out trending topics to all users in the US
Image Credits: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Spotify’s live audio app is no longer active, but the company has been using the tech to connect fans and artists better with the “Listening Party” feature. The feature lets high-engaging fans join events like releasing of an album by an artist with opportunities to ask them questions.
The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it has been testing this feature in the U.S. and Indonesia since December 2023 with plans to expand to more markets.
“It’s still in its early stages but we’ve had a few artists test over the last few months, including Zara Larsson and Bleachers,” a Spotify spokesperson said.
Image Credits: Threads/Chris
A Listening Party is listed under the events section of an artist’s profile. Spotify said that while typically top fans of a band receive a specific invitation, any Spotify Premium user can join the Listening Party through the listing. The company didn’t specify what kind of user counts as a top fan besides folks who have “demonstrated an affinity for the artist over time.”
Since Spotify is using real-time audio tech, fans can request to go “onstage” during a session to interact with the artist. Plus, each listening party has a live chat room during the event.
The company said the feature allows fans to shop the latest merch from artists while streaming music alongside other fans. Last year, the company launched an in-app Merch Hub, to give fans personalized recommendations to buy stuff from different artists.
Notably, Spotify has had a Group Session feature to listen to songs with your friends. Now it is trying to bring parts of group listening and live audio interactions together with the Listening Party feature.
Over the last few years, the company has also tried to grow direct engagement between fans and artists through merchandise sales, events, and ticketing.
Fresh off the heels of raising $50 million at a $550 million valuation in March, The Browser Company continues to bring in more features to its Arc browser, set up to provide a genuine alternative to Chrome and other dominant players in the internet browser market. Today it is introducing a new feature called Live Folders, which will automatically create and update tabs in a folder based on events like someone adding a file to a shared folder.
Live Folders comes as the company also builds out more AI-powered features to create more dynamic and automated user experiences. One plan has been to build an AI agent that browses the web on your behalf, although this has yet to launch.
The company is launching Live Folders initially with GitHub pull request support. When a user creates a GitHub pull request, Arc automatically creates a Live Folder in the sidebar.
The folder will automatically update tabs based on pull requests you have created, assigned to, requested a review for or mentioned. The folder will automatically clear out tabs with completed requests and tasks.
If there is a new pull request when your Live Folder is collapsed, the browser will peek it out to highlight the new request to you.
Image Credits: Arc Browser (screen capture)
Arc is aiming to build a new kind of tracking system with this feature to help users with their daily work. The company teased this feature in February. When it asked users about support for types of systems for the Live Folders feature, GitHub was the top requested service.
The company said it is focused on integrating services to Live Folders that are treated toward collaboration, such as Google Calendar, Google Drive and Figma. It added that the tech behind Live Folders is flexible, so it could also adopt things like updates from RSS feeds.
Earlier this month, the startup’s CEO, Josh Miller, announced that the company had hired former Safari designer Charlie Deets and former WhatsApp designer Christine Rode to build different interface designs.
Amazon is trying to keep live shopping relevant with the launch of an “Amazon Live” FAST (free ad-supported TV) channel on Prime Video and Freevee. Previously only available as a feature on desktop, mobile and Fire TV, the new live channel will give customers in the U.S. more ways to engage with interactive, shoppable content.
Amazon Live’s FAST channel will feature 24/7 programming from popular creators and celebrities, such as reality TV stars Lala Kent (“Vanderpump Rules”) and Paige DeSorbo (“Southern Charm”), who is also launching her own original show on Amazon Live, where she’ll develop brand new content. Brands like Tastemade and The Bump will also host streams to sell their products.
Viewers can browse and buy the items influencers show off by using the Amazon Shopping app on their mobile device. When entering “shop the show” into the search bar, users are directed in real time to a shopping carousel featuring the products they see on TV.
Image Credits: Amazon
This isn’t the first time Prime Video has introduced an e-commerce shopping experience on the streamer. To promote “The Boys” spinoff series “Gen V,” Amazon launched a virtual store selling merchandise and home goods based on Godolkin University, the superhero school in the show.
Last year, QVC and HSN — the top two shopping channels — launched linear offerings on Freevee, which were the only livestream shopping channels on the service at the time.
Amazon Live launched in 2019 as a QVC-like shopping experience to help brands get their products discovered and for talent to interact with fans. It rolled out the offering to customers in India in 2022. According to the company, more than 1 billion customers in the U.S. and India streamed Amazon Live’s shoppable videos in 2023 alone.
Despite Amazon’s success with live shopping, the format only makes up a small percentage of the e-commerce market. Last year, live shopping was anticipated to be worth $31.7 billion, however, total U.S. online retail sales reportedly reached $1.14 trillion.
Amazon launches QVC-style livestream shopping in India
‘Amazon Live’ is the retailer’s latest effort to take on QVC with live-streamed video
