NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- While I've never had a problem with Amazon.com (AMZN) ripping off other people's ideas, it's starting to get a bit old. And there's more than a halfway chance the approach could produce diminishing returns if it hasn't started to already.
Granted Jeff Bezos can claim the wholesale redefinition and disruption of retail, expanding Sunday delivery via the USPS and forthcoming package drops by drone as his own, but he's lifted pretty much everything else.
Amazon Fresh -- that's a Webvan knockoff.
While it remains to be seen how effective it will be, the recent partnership that lets Amazon customers put items in their cart via Twitter (TWTR) provides hope that there's a modicum of thought at Amazon beyond kicking retail's losers while they're down and following pop technology trends. If there's any place where Amazon can continue to tunnel this trajectory to more innovative ground it's by using streaming radio for some other ends than to play music, pay royalties and add (perceived) value to Amazon Prime.
I provided some color earlier this year on how this might look in Amazon Music Could Be Songza: Songza aims to provide the perfect advertisement and, quite possibly, the ideal e-commerce opportunity for what you're doing, thinking, feeling. The idea is that music acts as the soundtrack for people's lives -- from big think, all-encompassing and day-to-day activity standpoints. That's at least how it was explained to me last year when I did some digging and talked to people about Songza's plans. It's not there yet, but that's the thought process behind the ongoing evolution. And what better way to get there than having Amazon put the full power of its beast behind you. Plus, if the aforementioned model isn't right up Amazon's alley, I'm not sure what is.
The looks less and less like that'll actually happen, the more and more I think about it and wonder why.
If you're Amazon and you're going to get into some flavor of music-driven streaming media, it seems to me you risk underwhelming both Wall Street and consumers with some tired iteration of Google (GOOG) Play on the on-demand side or Pandora (P) or Apple's iTunes Radio on the radio side. How much value is that really going to add to Prime? I can't imagine droves of people dumping whatever they're using now to use whatever Amazon puts out. However some will use Amazon's offering along with what they're already using -- especially if they're already Prime members -- and even more bodies will at least check it out if there's a distinctive wrinkle. This is probably the most boring video I'll ever embed in an article, but it's apropos to the conversation. In it the president of the Songwriter's Guild testifies before Congress in favor of better compensation for songwriters. I'm on board with him, but it's the music sells everything message he delivers at the beginning of this clip you need to pay attention to with respect to Amazon. It's only a few seconds long: Whether it's via Songza, doing something Songza-like (another knockoff!) or something all together different, it would be nice to see Amazon find some sort of e-commerce tie-in for its forthcoming streaming radio service. Something nobody has done yet. Something that creatively and respectfully marries the association between music as everything from a soundtrack to the background in our lives with our penchant to buy stuff online. Our tendency to make impulse purchases while surfing Amazon and listening to music. Some type of thoughtful integration of the Amazon e-commerce platform with its streaming radio interface. If anybody can pull this off, it might be Amazon. And it would make a much larger and more meaningful splash than the introduction of another Pandora killer that has zero chance of killing Pandora. Plus it might provide a different path for every type of Amazon customer (prospective, light, emerging, heavy Prime user, etc.) to buy stuff from the top dominator that doubles as an imitator in retail/technology. Follow @mynameisrocco --Written by Rocco Pendola in Santa Monica, Calif. >>Read More: Amazon and Netflix Are Going After Your Kids WWE Announces New Television Deal with NBC Universal Big Media Will Win With or Without Net Neutrality
Stock quotes in this article: AMZN, AAPL, P Rocco Pendola is a full-time columnist for TheStreet. He lives in Santa Monica. Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks.
Wayne Parry/AP WASHINGTON -- Less than two years after Congress approved a landmark bill to overhaul the federal flood insurance program, lawmakers are poised to undo many of the changes after homeowners in flood-prone areas complained about sharp increases in premiums. The House overwhelmingly passed a bill Tuesday night that would allow sellers to give their subsidized, below-market insurance rates to new buyers and lower the cap on how much flood insurance premiums can rise each year. Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said it would ensure that families across the country, including those still struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy, can avoid "a wave of devastating premium hikes and foreclosures." The Senate could soon follow. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., says he supports the House measure, which mirrors a bill he sponsored and the Senate approved in January. The House bill "will end the most egregious problems with the flood insurance program and bring some real relief to thousands of homeowners who desperately need our help," Menendez said in a statement Tuesday night. "I'm encouraged by this progress and hope we can bring the bill over the finish line very, very soon." A White House spokesman declined to comment on the House bill, but the White House said during debate on the Senate measure that it strongly supports a phased transition to risk-based flood insurance rates to help ensure that the federal flood insurance program has adequate resources to pay future claims. "The administration recognizes that many policyholders may be challenged financially by the new rates and remains committed to working with the Congress to develop approaches that ensure economically distressed policyholders are not unduly burdened while maintaining the financial stability" of the flood insurance program, the White House said in a Jan. 27 statement. Both the House and Senate measures are aimed at weakening a 2012 law designed to wean hundreds of thousands of homeowners off subsidized flood insurance rates. The federal flood insurance program is now some $24 billion in the red, mostly because of huge losses from Sandy and Hurricane Katrina. The 2012 law required extensive updating of the flood maps used to set premiums. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., co-sponsored the 2012 law as well as the latest fix to what she called the original law's "unintended effects" of dramatic rate increases for homeowners. "Relief is on the way," Waters said Tuesday night, adding that the new bill would make insurance premiums more affordable while making the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the flood program, more accountable. Some GOP lawmakers complained that the Republican-controlled House was going along with a measure widely supported by Democrats. A total of 180 Democrats joined 126 Republicans in supporting the bill. The measure was approved 306-91. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called the flood insurance program poorly run and doomed to failure, noting that it charges just 70 percent of what officials say is needed to break even. The program uses a faulty model that understates flood risks, with the result that a single mother in Dallas who works at a grocery store subsidizes a millionaire's beachfront home, Hensarling said. "That is the definition of unfair," he said. Implementation of the 2012 law has stirred anxiety among homeowners along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in other flood plains. Many homeowners have complained they face unaffordable rate increases. Anger over the higher rates has fueled a bipartisan drive to delay or derail many of the 2012 changes. The Senate bill approved in January delays implementation of the insurance overhaul for four years. The House bill would permanently repeal a provision that imposes sharp rate increases on people who buy homes in flood-prone areas. The bill also preserves below-market rates for people whose homes meet federal flood map standards. Rates imposed by the 2012 law are particularly high in older coastal communities in states such as Florida, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey and have put a damper on home sales as prospective buyers recoil at the higher premium rates. The House bill was brought to the floor under special rules that limited debate and required two-thirds support from those voting. That standard proved little challenge for bill supporters, despite opposition from tea party groups and other conservatives who said the measure would continue unfair federal subsidies for people who choose to live in flood-prone areas. Some environmental groups also opposed the bill, saying that climate change has increased the risk of flooding in coastal areas, making it illogical to continue to rebuild in flood zones. The House measure would also give relief to people who have bought homes after the 2012 overhaul and therefore face sharp, immediate jumps in their premiums. Those homeowners would see rate increases capped at an average of 15 percent, with a maximum of 18 percent per year. People whose second home is in a flood zone and those whose properties have repeatedly flooded would continue to see their premiums go up by 25 percent a year until reaching a level consistent with their real risk of flooding. FEMA would retain the ability to increase premiums each year, but the increases wouldn't be as steep as mandated under the 2012 law. A surcharge on each of 5.6 million policyholders would offset the cost of continued subsidies for about 1.1 million homeowners. The changes proposed by the House dismayed supporters of the 2012 law, who said it began to remove incentives for people to live in costly, flood-prone areas. "Nobody wants to see their rates go up. But taxpayers across the country don't want to support a program that is $24 billion in debt and climbing," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group, of the federal flood insurance program. A far better solution than either the House or Senate bill would be to slow down the rate increase, even dramatically, "but still allow rates to continue to move toward their risk-based" level, Ellis said. 
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