Though Amazon continues to play a defining role in most publishers' affiliate commerce businesses, many publishers are cynical of its new platform.
According to four publishers that Amazon pitched, Amazon's Live pitch seems to be unfocused and vague. Many even felt that though Amazon has offered some money to help ease the cost that comes from producing live content, the amount often falls short of what was necessary for making high-quality live content at the scale as requested by Amazon.
While pitching to publishers, the ecommerce giant stressed the importance of promoting their Live sessions on third-party platforms. But, the company would not give publishers any assurance about how much revenue Live sessions might bring in. Publishers, on the other hand, argued that the content created for Amazon Live has a short shelf life.
While the combination of audience hunting and uncertain revenue has turned off most publishers, it has attracted many independent creators. But this has come at a cost: low-quality content that hardly served the program's purpose. An executive at one publisher participating in that program said, "If we'd had a much more positive experience, we'd be game for it."
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