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Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

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Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#81

Post by max76 »

I've spent a lot of time thinking about monetization on voice-assist apps. This is a challenging problem, and I suspect it's holding AAA quality 3rd party support for the platforms behind. There is no stand alone (from a mobileapp/webapp) voice-assist app that has brought in significant revenue. I'm going to break down some of the most common attempts at revenue and describe their pitfalls.

* Sell Audio (Spotify, Audible, MP3 style): If the goal is to get into this business than you'll have much better reach if you sell on smartphones. The voice-assist app will be supplementary at best.

* Sell products (Amazon/Ebay style): People aren't generally comfortable buying products with voice-assist. You'll have to compete directly with Amazon.

* Market products (In-line advertising style): You'll have to generate a lot of original content to plug sponsored products. The original content will have to be very compelling. It's probably more appealing to host the original content somewhere else primarily.

* Sell audio advertisement: What make the voice-assist platform compelling for content consumption? How can you create a very engaging voice-assist app? Will people tolerate audio advertisements? They tend to consume more time and be less interesting than visual ads.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#82

Post by chiefalchemist »

> "The advent of the smartphone triggered an app gold rush. So far that hasn’t happened with Alexa."

While gold rush is an accurate analogy, I'm not so sure that's a positive. I remember a couple+ years ago the NYT doing an article / series on (native) app developers and how - contrary to the hype - there were significantly more "losers" than winners.

So has Alexa made it worse? Now there are no winners at all? (Editorial: Well, sans Amazon and its shareholder.)

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#83

Post by camtarn »

dalbasal wrote: post #48

I think we still don't have a good model for how voice UI needs to work. The equivalent of GUI for mouse-and-keyboard machines or tap-and-swipe interfaces for mobile. If we did have a UI model, I imagine we'd be controlling car stereos and driver-mode mobile phones with voice already. I wonder if any of these 80k apps have the "magic sauce" but just haven't applied it to the right problem.

Controlling a mobile phone while driving while using your voice is definitely a thing.

And I suspect if you have your phone hooked up to your car stereo, or integrated using Google or Apple's in-car docks, then using your voice to play music is also possible.

I think your point about not having a good model is correct, though, for anything other than basic uses (phoning, messaging, playing music, navigation, weather, etc)

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#84

Post by melling »

smacktoward wrote: post #78
clavalle wrote: post #56

Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. There's just not enough of a surface area for something so comprehensive. It's like saying 'There are 80k mouse enabled apps and no runaway hit'. What it can do is have an app for nearly anything, though, that makes sense for the form factor. It's on its way. The next step of its evolution is to look at…

But the mouse does have a runaway hit: Microsoft Windows. That being said, it took 22 years to get from Engelbart's original mouse to the first version of Windows that really took off (3.0), so perhaps we're just too early on in this product cycle for the hit to have emerged yet.

I'd say the Alexa is more like birth of the personal computer. Computers weren't very good in the mid 1970's.

Now that companies realize there's a product here, there will be an arm's race. Look for big improvements in next decade. Lots of people and billions of dollars are about to go into making these products better.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#85

Post by kristianc »

melling wrote: post #84
smacktoward wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the mouse does have a runaway hit: Microsoft Windows. That being said, it took 22 years to get from Engelbart's original mouse to the first version of Windows that really took off (3.0), so perhaps we're just too early on in this product cycle for the hit to have emerged yet.

I'd say the Alexa is more like birth of the personal computer. Computers weren't very good in the mid 1970's. Now that companies realize there's a product here, there will be an arm's race. Look for big improvements in next decade. Lots of people and billions of dollars are about to go into making these products better.

To take this analogy further, it is interesting that by say 1976, we seem to have already realized that what you need to make voice devices actually useful is a screen and a GUI.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#86

Post by deadbunny »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #66
clavalle wrote: post #56

Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. There's just not enough of a surface area for something so comprehensive. It's like saying 'There are 80k mouse enabled apps and no runaway hit'. What it can do is have an app for nearly anything, though, that makes sense for the form factor. It's on its way. The next step of its evolution is to look at…

I don't believe your comparison really works. A mouse is useless on its own. An Alexa device can operate on its own. I do agree with your latter sentiment. It does feel like a command line at times. More so like trying to figure out a text adventure game. Zork would be very difficult if you didn't know the basic functions/words. That's what Alexa feels like most of the time for me. I'd love a help menu.

> An Alexa device can operate on its own.

Only if you conveniently ignore the AWS services it uses.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#87

Post by abakker »

The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. There are no native apps because everything that it can do is just an IO to something else. If they actually get conversational, this will change, but until then, it’s just a command line with no man page.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#88

Post by Spare_account »

aedron wrote: post #44
dev_north_east wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I was under the mistaken impression that the devices were more robust than that. I'm very anti these devices, now I'm even moreso!

For what it's worth, in two years our Google Home has only 'misfired' once, and that was when someone on TV said 'Hey Google'. It is in the living room and sees heavy use by a family of five.

> our Google Home has only 'misfired' once ... when someone on TV said 'Hey Google'

Is that a misfire? It reacted to the trigger phrase. Have you trained it to only react to your voice (I know that's an option for Google assistant, but I didn't do it for mine).

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#89

Post by ponyous »

ctruelson wrote: post #34
lbacaj wrote: post #32

Anecdotally a developer friend of mine strongly suspects, most people, are like him and not actually using these home speakers very much. I’ve been working on a an Audio App that reads any articles to you for iOS/Android and planned to bring it to the Echo and he seems to suggest my efforts are totally wasted. Although their market reach seems to be massive, likely related to their cheap price, not surprised by this…

Curious, are the articles dictated by a human or a machine?

My question as well. I imagine it's a machine. I'm not gonna download/register just so I can listen to a sample. I find robotic voices to be annoying.
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