Amazon.com announced that it is offering streaming for movies and video to its "prime" members at no additional cost as part of the $79 per year membership fee.

This means that prime users can have access to over 5,000 movies and tv shows for streaming to their tv's and computers. By offereing this service, Amazon.com appears to be going toe-to-toe with Netflix on its formidable movie rental turf.

However, due to Amazon's lack of DVD by mail service, it remains to be seen how it plans to narrow the gap in overall users and marketshare.