Alexa

Alexa is part of the family now with Rozzi Meredith
Alexa is part of the family now with Rozzi Meredith 1800 1200 VUX World

We’re joined by Rozzi Meredith, Head of Innovation Strategy at Voxly Digital, to discuss their new report: ‘Part of the family, now: investigating voice usage amongst UK families’.
read more

Two strategies to get your Alexa skill discovered
Two strategies to get your Alexa skill discovered 1280 720 VUX World

Alexa skill discoverability is a challenge that’s existed since the birth of the Echo as a skill developer or brand, how do you get people to use your Alexa skill? In this video, we dive into two strategies that, when used together, will help you find users. read more

Alexa for retailers and the voice shopping landscape with Shilp Agarwal
Alexa for retailers and the voice shopping landscape with Shilp Agarwal 1800 1200 VUX World

Retailers with Alexa skills can see a 12-15% increase in cart size, improve customer experience and gather vital competitive data as voice shopping explodes. Shilp Agarwal, CEO of Blutag, joins us to share more about the voice shopping landscape.
read more

Live video broadcasting on Alexa with Tim McElreath
Live video broadcasting on Alexa with Tim McElreath 1800 1200 VUX World

The Food Network aims to the be Peloton of cooking with live video broadcasting on Alexa. Director of Technology and Emerging Platforms at Discovery Inc., Tim McElreath, joins us to share how. read more

Four Alexa Champions walk down memory lane with Nick Schwab, Eric Olsen, Tim Kahle and Steve Arkonovich
Four Alexa Champions walk down memory lane with Nick Schwab, Eric Olsen, Tim Kahle and Steve Arkonovich 1800 1200 VUX World

We catch up with 4 Amazon Alexa Champions to discuss the then, now and future of the Alexa skills ecosystem and the voice first community. read more

Voice search is real and Google is concerned
Voice search is real and Google is concerned 1800 1200 VUX World

Voice search is happening. And Google is under threat. Not short term threat but long term threat.

There’s a new search provider in town and it’s name is Alexa. read more

Amazon Alexa Super Bowl ad 2020
Amazon Alexa Super Bowl ad 2020 1800 1200 VUX World

Transcript:

Amazon have released a preview of its Super Bowl advert and it was aired on The Ellen Degeneres Show.

DeGeneres? I think it’s DeGeneres. Is that how you pronounce it?

Anyway, Amy Stapleton, recent Alexa Champion, (congratulations Amy!) posted something on LinkedIn:

The first point is that Alexa is portrayed as a servant. A low stature servant that just does whatever you tell it to, and the second thing is that there’s no real mention of third-party experiences, third party skills. It’s all first party stuff. Setting timers, turning the lights on turn the heating down stuff like that.

On the first point, totally agree with Amy that it does position Alexa as like a servant, which I don’t agree with it because even though it’s called an assistant, really the assistant needs to be proactive, needs to be trusted.

It needs to be at least at the same kind of social status, even a little bit higher than the user because it needs to be the one that’s organised. The one that’s got things sorted.

If you’re going to trust it to bank on in the future and shop on, it needs to be more than a subservient servant, and the second thing is that it doesn’t really mention much third-party capability. It’s all very much first party stuff, and I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll say it again.

I don’t know whether, I’m not totally convinced whether Amazon really at this stage cares too much about third-party functionality. I mean, if they’ve got 200 million smart speakers and each one of those smart speakers is being used every single day for setting timers, setting alarms, routines, lights, heating, is that so bad for them?

Obviously third-party experiences, applications, uses and services make the whole platform reach another level and a level that Amazon could never reach themselves because they just couldn’t scale that much development.

But from Amazon’s perspective right now. I think there’d be quite happy to keep selling smart speakers, keep selling Fire Sticks and keep everyone using the first party skills because it’s building habits. It’s building confidence and for Amazon, it’s still engagement.

When can we advertise on Alexa?
When can we advertise on Alexa? 1800 1200 VUX World

“When will we see advertising on Alexa?”

If you’re thinking this, you’re missing the point. read more

Google Assistant: 500m active users, popular Alexa skill: 300,000 daily users
Google Assistant: 500m active users, popular Alexa skill: 300,000 daily users 1800 1200 VUX World

At Project Voice in Chattanooga, TN, we saw some light shed on just how many people are using the Google Assistant, and some updated numbers on the kind of traffic one of the most popular Alexa skills handles.

Cathy Pearl, Head of Conversation Design Outreach, Google, towards the end of her presentation shared some numbers on how many monthly active users Google Assistant has.

500 million per month.

Thats across all surfaces and devices, but it’s a lot.

Google is the first of the big players to share numbers like this. Maybe it was waiting for the number to be high enough to warrant talking about.

I’d like to see the same numbers from Amazon. Now I’m wondering whether Amazon is also waiting to reach a noteworthy milestone before releasing them.

Nick Schwab, founder of Invoked Apps and creator of some of the most popular skills on Alexa, including Sleep Sounds and a host of ambient sounds, shared how much traffic his skills handle per day.

300,000 per day.

2% of users try the premium service and 90% of those convert into paying customers.

That’s doubled since we spoke to Nick on the VUX World podcast last year.

Of those 300,000, 15% of them were using a smart display of some kind, such as the Echo Show 10, 8 or 5.

So now that we’re starting to see some solid numbers coming from the platforms and smiths successful developers on those platforms, it would be good to see others follow suit and share the metrics behind their successes in order to validate the opportunity that these platforms present for organisations and individuals.

If you’ve been uncertain about the kind of opportunities that exist on these platforms for your company, or cautious about jumping in and investing, maybe these numbers will start to help you paint a clearer picture about whether you should and the size or the market and opportunity that you could take if you do.

Introducing the latest Alexa Champion: Dustin Coates
Introducing the latest Alexa Champion: Dustin Coates 1800 1200 VUX World

Every once in a while, the Alexa team at Amazon give a select few people a badge of honour.🥇

It’s called the Alexa Champions programme and it commends individuals within the Amazon Alexa community who’ve done great work in helping push the voice first agenda forwards.

Drumroll please…

In the most recent batch of 2020 Champions is our very own Dustin Coates!🤴

Dustin has been an active member of the voice community for over 4 years.

His site Talking To Computers is a voice developers dream.

His book Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant is the only one of its kind and helps turn voice dev novices into pros.

His work with Algolia has brought voice search to a whole host of players.

And (obviously), it goes without saying that VUX World would be nothing without him. From hosting the podcast to building epic voice experiences for our clients.

He’s already a Google Developer Expert and now, rightfully, he’s an Amazon Alexa Champion.

Now he just needs the Samsung Bixby Premier Developer badge and he’ll join Nick Schwab as the only other developer to have the whole set. 😃

Congratulations Dustin!!

Enter your
text here