Amazon Stock Soars Above $700

Amazon’s common stock is anything but common after breaking above the $700 mark on Tuesday (May 10).

The shares ended the day up 3.4 percent, at $703.07, after touching a high intraday above $704. The news that spurred the shares to new heights, of course, includes the debut of Amazon Video Direct, which the firm has stated is a “self-service program” geared toward content creators to bring new online content to Amazon users, with an eye on Prime users. The service means that users in the Amazon ecosystem can put videos up on the streaming platform.

The videos can be perused for free by Prime users, with that designation encompassing tens of millions of users. The service is available on a subscription basis to other Amazon customers. As noted by SiliconBeat, the videos can be monetized in a variety of ways, such as ad support or royalties that are calculated on how many times streaming of a particular video takes place. The site also noted that there is a “pot” that is worth $1 million monthly, with distribution of that amount to stretch across the top 100 videos as rated and watched by Prime members.

SiliconBeat noted that the new Amazon service comes even as YouTube has been bringing out more options to find revenue streams spurred by its 1 billion monthly video observers. Most recently, the streaming video behemoth debuted its YouTube Red offering, where customers pay monthly fees to view videos that are free of advertising.