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Amazon.com Inc. announced today that it will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a July 16th concert headlined by Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, and hosted by Bill Maher.
The “Amazon.com 10th Anniversary Event Presented by Chase” will be streamed live from the Amazon.com gateway with the Dylan and Jones performances, as well as “all-time customer-favorite” authors and filmmakers.
Besides the musical performances and author readings, the event will include other presentations such as fresh behind-the-scenes footage from the best-selling Lord of the Rings DVD series.
July 16th marks 10 years since founder and CEO Jeff Bezos opened the virtual doors of Amazon.com from his Seattle-area garage. Since 1995, the company has expanded its product offerings from books to include everything from music and video to tennis rackets, live Maine lobsters and loose diamonds; it now operates additional sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, and China. In 2004, the company posted nearly $7 billion in revenue and its second profitable year.
The Amazon.com 10th Anniversary Event Presented by Chase will take place in Seattle at 5 p.m. PDT on July 16th. Host Maher is currently the star of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, and recently completed his upcoming book New Rules: Polite Musings of a Timid Observer.
Musicians, authors, and filmmakers were selected for the event based on their popularity with Amazon.com customers, who have “voted with their purchases” during the past 10 years, according to the company’s announcement.
Dylan — who has written over 500 songs, released over 43 albums, and sold over 90 million records worldwide in his 45-year career — will culminate the event. Just last year, sly old Bob released a critically acclaimed memoir entitled Chronicles, Vol. 1, in which he ruminates on the events and influences that shaped his life’s work.
Another all-time Amazon.com customer favorite, Jones’ rootsy, jazzy pop debut album Come Away with Me has sold millions of copies and won several Grammy awards. Her 2004 follow-up disc Feels Like Home earned two more Grammy Awards, while her collaboration with Ray Charles on the song “Here We Go Again” won Record of the Year. Jones’ performance at the Amazon.com 10th Anniversary Event will be her first and only show of 2005.
Additional performances and presentations will be added to the event schedule, which can be found here.
If you’re not an employee, don’t even think about going to the show – no tickets will be available to the public.
There is plenty for the company, and in particular Bezos, to celebrate. Billionaire Bezos has done so well in this brief decade that he was able to fulfill a childhood dream and become a “space entrepreneur,” founding the Blue Origin company in ’03, which this year bought 165,000 acres of land in West Texas as a base for eventual launching operations. The company is currently “developing vehicles and technologies that … will help enable an enduring human presence in space.” Their initial research efforts are “focused on reusable liquid propulsion systems, low cost operations, life support, abort systems and human factors,” their site states.
