The company has announced customers in the US can now choose from thousands of titles that the company have made available for free. According to the press release the free titles are not just some old ancient titles that no one has heard of, but some New York Times bestsellers.

Users won’t have to worry about any due dates for the digital books, but users are limited to one book at a time once a month. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos said in a statement “owning a Kindle just got even better” and added “Prime Members now have exclusive access to a huge library of books to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates”

The new Kindle Lending library promises to offer users a vast choice of categories in both fiction and non-fiction. As with any Kindle book notes, highlights and bookmarks are all saved so they will be available if you re-lend or purchase the book. If you want to borrow a new book they can easily return another book straight from their Kindle device.

Amazon announced that titles come from a variety of publishers, and for most of them it has been agreed for titles to be included for a fixed fee. It is also hoped the service will grow and you can find out more here.

Earlier this year online retailer Amazon launched its Amazon Prime service that put it up against the likes of Netflix. Now there are rumors that Amazon may extend this service to give users the access to a library of books. According to TNW Insider this will be available for a fixed monthly fee, and will be the eBook equivalent to Netflix.

It is reported that Amazon will offer publishers a big fee for taking part in the service, and in the current climate could prove highly tempting. There are already services similar to this already available such as bookswim and booksfree.com. These have been around for some time but differ as they are mainly for offline hardbacks and paperbacks.

Also there is 24symbols that has the same type of service that Amazon could be offering; the difference is at present it only offers titles that are public domain over premium bestsellers. The Kindle platform and Amazon’s strong relationships with publishers provides a unique opportunity that only Apple could match.

The service would likely prove to be hugely successful for the retail giant, and the Apple the iBook service hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. Especially considering the company’s other digital content successes.

Any such service will probably begin life in the US and hopefully start rolling out around the world. Many consumers may like the idea of paying a monthly subscription to get access to any books they want to read. Compared to buying titles if the book they choose to read turns out to be no good they can just move onto the next one.

Would you prefer to rent eBooks compared to purchasing them?

Greg Sandoval of Cnet is reporting that Amazon Prime customers can now stream over 5,000 movies and TV shows. This is included in the $79 members already pay annually, and content can be watched instantly on PCs, Macs, and most Internet connected devices. Some of the TV shows available include Farscape, Doctor Who, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Following Amazon’s announcement Netflix shares dropped four percent amid fears of increased competition. Brennon Slattery of PCWorld is reporting that Amazon’s library of movies is as good as Netflix’s, but smaller in size. He thinks that for the time being lots of Netflix customers won’t dump their subscriptions for Amazon, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Over at the Examiner.com Jennifer Garlen is reporting that the service only has around 200 films available in the Classics category. The majority of films are newer releases with dramas having the most titles. A couple of the more famous classic titles available from Amazon include My Man Godfrey, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion.

Chris Smith from TechRadar mentions the service is only available to US Amazon Prime customers. At present no information has been given about the service coming to the UK, but with having the LoveFilm catalogue at its disposal it may happen sometime in the future.

What do you think about Amazon’s new service?