Streaming media provider Broadcast.com and bookseller Amazon.com have announced new alliances and strengthened existing ones. To start with, the two have inked a deal with each other, in which Amazon will become Broadcast.com’s exclusive merchant for music and books. The partners plan to integrate their sites, so that a user watching a concert through broadcast.com can click to purchase books or CDs by the same artist from Amazon. The Seattle, Washington-based bookseller has swung a similar deal with Hoover’s Online, a provider of company information. Amazon gets promotional placements all over Hoover’s, as well as promotion in selected editorial features, the companies said. So much for editorial independence. For its part, Broadcast.com announced that it had successfully completed the $20.75m acquisition of Simple Network Communications Inc, a provider of web hosting services (CI No 3,541). The Dallas, Texas-based streaming media provider has its eye on SimpleNet’s 15,000 customers in 100 countries. Those customers will soon be able to create and broadcast their own audio and video programming through Broadcast.com.
