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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

#181

Post by jedberg »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #59
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…

> Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. I like the way you say that. My Google Home is a remote control for my mouth. It's like licking a keyboard one key at a time in the dark. Simple queries are easy, but any non-trivial query just aint't gonna happen at the moment.

> It's like licking a keyboard one key at a time in the dark.

Ewww. Good analogy, but eww.

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

#182

Post by melling »

tomc1985 wrote: post #165
melling wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you’ll have to wait until someone serves your market niche. Hopefully, with 100 million Amazon devices, and growing fast, you’ll have your product within a decade or two.

Which is fine, as my life is perfectly great without. I like your assumption that all innovation is supposedly good... And it's 100 million amazon devices because Amazon pushes them relentlessly and has been for some time. Their utility is questionable, even the article mentions that. Did you know over 3 billion devices run Java?

Yes, I do know. Not sure how that’s relevant.

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

#183

Post by ssnistfajen »

For nearly two years since me and my family owned Amazon Echo speakers, the Android app was practically just a browser wrapper that frequently loaded slowly or wouldn't load at all (this issue is now mostly addressed wtih a redesigned native-ish Android app but I'm afraid it may be too late). Looking for new apps was an excruciating experience and navigating menus inside the app was bad. I gave up soon after and have since only used the app to reconfigure network settings for the speaker.

I only use the speaker for casting music/podcasts, listening to news briefings, and timer/alarm/weather queries. Amazon Echo and Google Home do these basic functions well but I'd imagine they weren't the only actions these companies wanted us as consumers to do.

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

#184

Post by eecks »

sp332 wrote: post #148
Spare_account wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Amazon added a real-time sanity check, so if too many Echo devices are triggered with similar sounds within a few hundred milliseconds, it will ignore them. This was after some TV ads or shows had intentionally abused it.

Is this true? Triggering is done locally in the device.

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

#185

Post by detaro »

eecks wrote: post #184
sp332 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon added a real-time sanity check, so if too many Echo devices are triggered with similar sounds within a few hundred milliseconds, it will ignore them. This was after some TV ads or shows had intentionally abused it.

Is this true? Triggering is done locally in the device.

But they can ignore/cancel the request server-side, so technically the detection triggers, but no command does.

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

#186

Post by ssnistfajen »

sigi45 wrote: post #35
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…

I'm using the timer, alarm, hue integration for my lights, music and weather. Those are by far my killer features why i use it and why i like it. I haven't looked at any amazon skill store as i don't see any reason for it.

Playing songs/podcasts from Spotify on Echo while controlling it from my phone/computer is my favourite use of the speaker now. Ironically this action involves no voice commands whatsoever except occasionally telling the speaker to pause/resume/adjust volume when I'm away from my phone/computer.

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

#187

Post by elif »

I think the proper solution is to go old-school.

That is, provide a traditional desktop PC experience that is augmented and improved by Alexa. It should always be more productive to ask an AI than to Google, if this is to have a chance of success.

The problem was jumping immediately to a new modality instead of bridging toward it from the present.

Android assistant has the right idea.

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

#188

Post by hathawsh »

It may not be a runaway hit, but if you have kids and an Echo device, you should ask Alexa to "Open the Magic Door". It's essentially a text adventure with fun sound effects and good storytelling.

I can imagine a future where Magic Door or something like it becomes a big hit. BTW, there's a web site for the game: https://www.themagicdoor.org/

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

#189

Post by robocat »

mikepurvis wrote: post #157
oarsinsync wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phrasing comes into play here. Instead of: > "Hey, 3 months ago you asked for the forecast according to the ECMWF weather model, and I couldn't answer you. But now I can, so go ahead and try!". What might work more effectively is "We've been improving our weather forecasting and you can now get the forecast in your area according to a range of new models, including the often requested ECMWF weather model! Give it a t…

This attempt to obscure the fact that it's actually super-targeted can also backfire too, though. It wouldn't take too many of them for a savvy user to be like... now wait a minute. Thinking back to this classic where Target figures out the trick to not creeping out someone they suspect may be pregnant is to shuffle the maternity coupons in with a bunch of other random stuff: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/…

Relevant quotes:

What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” [snip] So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; [snip]

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance. And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

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

#190

Post by casper345 »

When I turn down the Alexa because of music but then I ask Alexa what is the weather, it is the same volume as down and I cant hear it. Then I have to say increase volume and then ask Alexa again.

This is small but I think defines the missing design principle of Alexa. Yes I want the music to be low when Im doing active 1, but the introduction of new action of knowing the weather I need to hear it. These are the little "smart" features that are needed for a product that Amazon is striving for needs.

Edit: I actually say Echo because I think we should stop personifying technology.

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